The Parental Ambition
by WeBuiltThePyramids
Summary: Leonard and Penny are back together and starting to think about their future. Howard is going into space. Things happen. Things don't happen.
1. Target Neutralized Battleship Sunk

**I've been working on this fic for two years. (And by saying that I have revealed exactly what this is to pretty much every Leonard/Penny fan I talk to on a regular basis. You guys have waited long enough!) It's long, and it's still not complete. But as I am not posting it all at the same time, I figured Christmas, with The Big Bang Theory's one hundredth episode fast approaching, was the perfect time to post the first chapter. Huge thanks to Roxanne and Amber for various ideas/advice/other help that they've given me.**

**DISCLAIMER: The Big Bang Theory belongs to those who create and market it. I make no profit off of this or any other work of fan fiction that I have worked on.**

**That said, I hope you guys enjoy this fic. I've spent a lot of time on it.**

The pre - recorded mechanical voice announced the plastic boat's theoretical plummeting to the ocean floor with a decently enunciated, "_Target neutralized. Battleship sunk."_

"Dammit," Penny said, throwing up her hands in frustration. _Not again. _"Dammit, dammit, dammit." She looked over at her boyfriend. "Leonard, help!"

"He can't help you, you've already hidden your ships," Amy pointed out, shifting her weight to peer over her boyfriend's shoulder.

"He can help me hit Sheldon's," Penny said. She turned to look at her boyfriend. "Where should I shoot next?"

"Alpha seven." He said after a moment, resting a hand on her shoulder as he studied the board. "Wow, Sheldon, you haven't missed many."

"Of course not," the theoretical physicist said. "The Battleship algorithm I've worked out has an eighty-five percent accuracy rate, and when I combine the said algorithm with Penny's consistent strategy, it's fairly effortless to hit her ships. Also, Amy, you can see my half of the battlefield without breathing down my neck."

"What do you mean, 'Penny's consistent strategy?'?" Penny protested, realizing as soon as she'd spoken that the theoretical physicist more than likely had wanted her to ask.

Sheldon gave a small, haughty laugh. "Oh please, a hominid could predict where you've hidden your Destroyer."

"Oh, it's Junior Rodeo on," she mumbled, teeth clenched as she punched Alpha Seven.

"Typical empty threat," Sheldon said to Amy. "When she doesn't have an otherwise witty comeback." Amy nodded in acknowledgement, both of them cocking their heads slightly to hear the outcome of Penny's shot, despite the both of them knowing it already.

One explosion. Then silence. _"Radar confirms 'miss' at Alpha seven."_

"Leonard!" Penny said, feigning fury.

"Hmmm." He cocked his head thoughtfully as if it truly baffled him that they had missed.

Sheldon smirked. "As you can see, _I_ am not consistent."

Penny mouthed "I am not consistent" at Leonard, and he smirked at her. She never got tired of his smile, and since they'd gotten back she'd been seeing that smile a lot. He moved toward his chair; she grabbed his hand and smiled up at him. Sheldon and Amy constantly pointed out that she and Leonard were in the honeymoon phase again, but putting a label on it didn't change anything.

Two loud explosions jolted them out of the moment, and their eyes turned from each other to a smug Sheldon. "Mua-ha-ha," he said, dragging out each syllable.

"_Radar confirms 'hit' at Charlie fourteen."_

_Damn, my Destroyer! _Penny's jaw dropped. "How the hell…"

"Mua-ha-ha."

Penny bit the corner of her lip and punched the buttons. Double explosion. "_Radar confirms 'hit' at Delta six."_

"There you go!" Leonard said proudly, rubbing her shoulder. She grinned up at him.

"Lucky shot," Amy said pointedly.

Penny and Leonard smirked at each other. "We'll see about that."

The celebration was short lived; Sheldon sunk her destroyer and patrol boat in the next six shots, dropping his accuracy rate to the percentage predicted before the game even started. "I must say," Sheldon said, getting up for water, "I had narrowed down my potential accuracy rate to a range of three percentage points, and I picked what turned out to be the correct one." He smiled. "Good for me."

"Sometimes he amazes even himself," Leonard joked as Penny.

"That doesn't sound too hard," she said, right on cue. They grinned at each other.

"Okay," Sheldon said from the kitchen. He took a bottle of water out of the fridge and set it on the counter. "You have already rendered me unable to watch _The Empire Strikes Back_; kindly cease with your corruption of _A New Hope._"

* * *

><p>"It was just amazing. He knew exactly where all of my ships were hidden, it's like he has eyes in the back of his head!"<p>

"Penny," Amy said, sounding as if she were trying very hard to be patient, "You know how whenever we play twenty questions Sheldon is Spock, and how Leonard uses the same password for everything?"

"Yes," Penny said, confused.

"Well…you tend to hide your ships in a similar pattern."

Penny looked at Leonard, who sighed. "You kinda do."

Beside Howard, Raj nodded in agreement.

"Well, since the secret is out…" Sheldon put down his comic book and sent a glare Amy's way.

"What?" the neurobiologist said. "You don't have anything in the relationship agreement that says in a game of Battleship that Boyfriend Trumps Bestie."

"We'll have to add it, then," Sheldon said.

"I'll only say yes if a second base clause is added."

Sheldon stared at her for several seconds, twitching slightly. "We'll talk. In any case, Penny, in the thirty two games that I have documented since you moved to this apartment building, you have placed a ship on Charlie fourteen in twenty one of them, sixty-six percent of the time. Of those twenty one games, the ship placed on Charlie fourteen was the destroyer in ten of them. You place your ships on the borders of the game screen in twenty-six of the thirty two games, which makes it not only predictable, but easier to sink the ships due to the limited number of spaces around them in which to miss."

Penny thought about it. "Hmmm, I guess you're right."

"You have no idea what he's talking about, do you?" Leonard asked her, grinning.

"Nope," she admitted, leaning back against him, and his hand found hers. "Not a clue." She linked their fingers. "Well, aside from the 'near the edges' part. That's fairly self – explanatory. And quite honestly, I'm still just trying to wrap my head around the fact that I've played Battleship with you guys thirty two times."

"You have played it seventy - one times," Sheldon said. "Thirty two of which was with me. Although if you are interested, your tendency patterns hold for all seventy - two games, although you win slightly more often when you play Leonard due to his inability to pick up on your patterns as well as me." He smiled smugly, and then looked at his girlfriend. "Amy, I think that Penny isn't well suited for battleship. Wouldn't you agree?"

"There is a certain learning curve to the game," Amy said. "However, you'd think she'd have mastered it by now."

"You know what?" Penny said. "I think I may do something a little more my intelligence level."

"Are you going to…oh…" Sheldon said, making a face as Penny grabbed Leonard by the ears and mashed her mouth on his. Leonard cringed until Penny let go of his ears and then proceeded to participate actively in Operation Weird Sheldon Cooper Out.

"Awww, now isn't this sweet," Amy said to Raj. "Didn't someone teach them to refrain from PDA in public?" She glanced at Sheldon. "Not that it wouldn't be nice once in a while..."

"They were engaged in extreme PDME the other day, rendering the atmosphere extremely awkward while I was trying to watch _Dr. Who._" Sheldon said, making a face.

"What the hell is PDME?" Penny asked, pulling away from Leonard to raise an eyebrow at Sheldon.

"Public Display of Making Eyes," Leonard said under his breath. "That's his new gripe."

"Seriously?"

He nodded. "Seriously."

**Reviews are awesome, of course. ;) And because some reviews I get really don't give me any indication if the reviewer has read the story or just skimmed it, here's a little incentive. At the end of the fic, I'm going to ask a question about it. It's not going to be something you can just go look up. The first person to give me the right answer gets a prize. :D**


	2. The Past Six Days

**I've been out of town for a few days, so there was a few day delay in getting this chapter up. Expect a couple of days in between them. And I'm going to try and have more of The Surrogate Aftermath up in the next few days as well because it's just been one thing after another preventing me from updating that one.**

**And I still don't own anything.**

Penny usually had a passionate love hate relationship with a slow day at work. Usually she was torn between wanting it to be busy so the time would go by, or wanting it to be fairly quiet so she wouldn't have to be constantly thinking about who hadn't been helped, who wanted more food, who was waiting for the bill. But today she realized it being quiet gave her a lot of time to think, and she didn't want to let her mind wander, not today. Her mother and father had always told her that there was no use in worrying about what couldn't be changed and certainly not before whatever was causing the worry could be confirmed as a legitimate sort of worry, but Penny was never one to let reason direct her thoughts, at least not when the aforementioned thought was something that she was holding inside. And definitely not when she was _this_ consumed by the possibility.

A voice pulled a grateful Penny out of her thoughts. "Hey stranger." The voice belonged to someone that Penny hadn't seen in so long that it almost felt like they really didn't know each other. She spun around, eyes resting on the small blonde woman sitting at the bar, grinning as if quite pleased that she'd been able to walk through the empty restaurant and hoist herself up onto the bar stool without Penny noticing her presence. "Bernadette!" Penny squealed, running around the bar to give her friend a hug. "You're home!" She wondered if her hug had been a little too aggressive, but Bernadette not only seemed totally comfortable with it but returned it with just as much enthusiasm. "I've missed you!" She said, grinning.

"I missed you too," Bernadette said, adjusting her glasses and then resting both arms on the counter top. "It's been so long, at least it feels that way."

"I know what you mean." She held the microbiologist at arm's length. "How was the honeymoon?"

"Oh," Bernadette gushed, "it was fantastic. The weather was great, Howard was just…" she shook her head. "Everything was perfect, and considering our luck I'm pretty much convinced that miracles do in fact exist," she added, laughing.

"Oh, I am so happy for you," Penny said. "You needed some time to relax. And as you can see," she added, gesturing around the restaurant, "I have been absolutely swamped."

Bernadette glanced around, even though she'd figured out moments after reaching the Cheesecake Factory's parking lot that she was the only one there who wasn't an employee. "Wow, you really weren't kidding. You'd better get right back to that, wouldn't want to fall behind and have everyone angry and under tipping!"

Penny laughed dryly. "Yeah, plus I'm probably gonna get fired if I can't catch back up."

The two women laughed, putting their hands to their mouths as if such laughter was forbidden. "So since we're speaking of catching up," Bernadette said, letting out a deep breath and shifting her weight on the stool as Penny went back around behind the bar, "how have you been?"

"Oh, fine," Penny said, shrugging. "Life's…pretty much as it always was. Do you want something to drink?"

"It feels like longer than a month since we've all hung out together," Bernadette said. "And no thank you, I'm going to see my mother later and you know that with my size it doesn't take much to get me drunk."

Penny laughed. It was always fun – and relatively inexpensive due to her size – to get Bernadette drunk. She and Amy had a good time doing that on occasion. "Well, if you include the panicked wedding preparation stage that preceded the wedding, it's been much longer than that since we've actually had a nice, relaxed girls' night," Penny pointed out.

Bernadette turned slightly pink. "Okay, fair point. But seriously," Bernadette said. She smiled. "Can we please go out drinking tomorrow night, after I've seen all the family that I need to be sober to visit with?"

"Um…" Penny hesitated for the slightest moment, wondering how she should respond, and then nodded, putting her smile back on. "Yeah, absolutely. Gosh, look at you!" She said, her smile growing more enthusiastic as she viewed the microbiologist. "You're positively glowing!"

"Well, isn't it nice?" Bernadette said. "The wedding stress is over, no more big financial burdens, at least for a while with my new job and…well, it's just been so long since we haven't been under stress! I love not worrying about anything, you know? Getting to go about the day with no pressing matters on your mind…" she shook her head, causing Penny to smile from the microbiologists surprisingly contagious enthusiasm. "Isn't it incredible?"

"Well, I certainly don't have to worry much either, at least not about pleasing all these nonexistent customers," Penny said wryly, glancing around the restaurant again and putting on a glare for all of the invisible diners. "You guys all suck!"

Bernadette burst out laughing, and the waitress laughed right along, knowing full well that under usual circumstances, that was a joke only Leonard and Amy would find humorous. But it had been weeks since the microbiologist and wanna be actress had seen each other and, like people who were low on sleep, everything had a higher comedic value than usual. "I have missed you so much," Penny told her again.

"I know," Bernadette said. "And again, you too." She got up from the stool, dropping down to the ground. "Well listen, I have to get home so I can prep Howard for dinner with my mother, but we are definitely hanging out tomorrow, okay? Text Amy. No, don't do that, I will, you've been talking to her." She floated toward the restaurant exit. "Night!"

"Bye!" Penny said cheerfully. As soon as the waitress was gone, she sank onto the stool that she'd dragged back behind the counter for herself and put her face in her hands, feeling her heart beating through her temples and willing it to calm down and the feeling of nausea - which she hoped was just from the nerves and wasn't another sign - to pass. The time she'd just spent socializing made the silence even more painful, and the suggestion that the girls go out for drinks made it impossible for her to pretend like nothing was bothering her.

Maybe Bernadette, pretty, well employed, newlywed Bernadette didn't have anything to worry about. But Penny did. She had been worrying nearly nonstop for the past six days.

**Remember to review! : )**


	3. The Ides of November

**New chapter! *does accomplishment dance* Happy New Year, everyone!**

**Oh, and I don't know if I need to post a disclaimer every chapter, but just an FYI, I don't own anything. I'm just a fan who writes fiction for fiction.**

Leonard entered Penny's apartment without even knocking. "Hey," he said in greeting, noticing her sitting on the couch and starting at the wall.

She turned her head and smiled at him. "Hey, you."

Leonard came over to the couch, lifted her feet, and sat down, putting her feet back down on his lap. "How was work?" He asked starting to massage them.

"Boring." Penny sighed. "I hate that shift. Nobody comes. It's so stupid. They're losing money employing me for those hours. Even with my lousy ass pay."

"I'm sorry," Leonard said.

"Eh," Penny said. "It's money."

"True," Leonard said, nodding. "True."

"Oh, that's good," Penny said, closing her eyes as Leonard continued his work on her feet. He smiled. Penny hesitated once more, then raised herself on her elbows, deciding that now was as good of a time as any. "I need to talk to you."

"As opposed to what we're doing right now?" He asked with a grin.

"No, seriously," Penny said, sitting up and swinging her legs downward so she was actually in a sitting position. "We've been back together for a year, give or take. You'd need to know in advance, at least, I'd want to know..."

Leonard pretended to be horrified. "Oh my God, you ran over a hobo!"

Penny could tell exactly how quickly the confusion came over her face. "What?"

Leonard smirked, as if laughing at an inside joke. "Nothing, never mind. What's up?"

"Well," Penny said. "You know how Sheldon starting saying "beware the ides of" whatever month it currently was because that's when I get, to use his words, "very crabby?"

Leonard smiled. "Is it wrong that I still find that a little funny?"

"Yes," Penny said. "And I find it wrong that he's still got that on the calendar. But here's the thing."

"You know what he's referencing when he says that, don't you?" Leonard asked. "It's relating to…"

"The ides of March," Penny said. "Yes, it's very amusing and very unfortunate for me that my 'crabby days' as he puts them are around that time. But his little schedule is going to be thrown off with that because the ides of November was more than a week ago and I'm not caught up."

Leonard furrowed his brow, trying to understand, and then gave up and gave an almost non – noticeable shake of his head. "Huh?"

Penny had secretly hoped that he'd pick up on what she was getting at, not make her come out and say it because she was afraid to, as if she was still clinging to some thread of denial, but she knew it wasn't much more than a pipe dream. She sighed. "I'm late, Leonard. Six days."

"Late for…oh!" His eyes got larger as her meaning became clear. "Six days…_six_?" He looked completely baffled. "That's more than a week…is that even possible? I mean, I'm a guy, but my understanding is that once you're at your age you only…" Suddenly, realization hit him, an odd look came over his face, and then his expression changed to complete seriousness. Leonard dropped his gaze, then looked back up, dropped again, and finally locked eyes with her, letting out the stale breath and taking another long, slow one before speaking. "Are you pregnant?" He asked quietly, putting a hand on her knee.

She looked down at the floor. "I don't know."

"Well," Leonard said, looking down at the same spot that she was, "did you take a test?" Penny nodded, not taking her eyes off the floor. "When I got home today."

Leonard shifted his weight slightly. "But…but you said you don't know."

"I took two. One was positive. One was negative. And I'm not sure if I took the first one correctly. That was the positive one, but how many ways can you pee on a stick wrong?"

Leonard sighed. "Go to the doctor. Get a blood test."

She nodded. "I made an appointment for tomorrow morning. Oh God, Leonard," she said, putting her hands to her face.

"It's okay, it's okay," Leonard said, scooting closer. "Just come here." He curled his arms around her. "I'm sure it's fine," he whispered. "I'm sure it was a false positive."

"How can you be sure?" She asked him. "_Six_ days."

"I know," he said. "And look, if the blood test is positive, we'll handle it. It's going to be okay." He turned his head slightly to kiss her hair. "I love you."

"I know," she said, putting her hands over his and shifting her weight so her back was against his chest. "I just wasn't expecting this. Not after so long, you know, you just stop thinking about it after you've gotten away with everything for so long."

"Well, that's the idea when you're being careful," Leonard said. "You never missed a day?"

"Well," Penny said, "there was one day I didn't take it, but it was the week about a month ago that you were working nights and I was working days and we didn't sleep together that entire week; but the box says if you miss one day you're still protected, and it was the only day I've missed in over a year. I didn't even think anything of it at the time, but thinking back, of course…"

"Well," Leonard said, raising his thumbs to stroke hers as best he could with his hands beneath hers, "we've been back together for a while; we'll handle this." He kissed her hair again. "There's _nothing _we can't handle."

Penny closed her eyes and smiled, rubbing Leonard's hands. "I love how you actually believe that."

"Of course I do," he said. "It's you and me; we can do anything. Didn't you say that to me once?"

"I believe you're paraphrasing with a hint of exaggeration," she said playfully, removing one of her hands from his and tipping her head back, tapping his chin with her pointer finger. "But I like it."

He smiled at her, and then they both sighed, staring blankly ahead.

* * *

><p>Usually, when bored, Penny napped, but, it didn't work when she was worried. Napping required either extreme exhaustion or a cleared mind, and her mind was anything but clear right now. She'd have made a terrible Jedi.<p>

So instead of napping, Penny went to shower while Leonard got dinner. "I'll go make some excuse as to why we can't eat with the rest of them," he had said to her. "We'll spend some time together."

"It's Howard and Bernadette's first night back" Penny had protested. "And I already have to think up an excuse as to why I can't go drinking with her and Amy tomorrow night."

"If the tests are negative, you won't have to think up anything," Leonard had reminded her. "And if it's positive, well, they'll understand in time."

He had been right. Of course, he rarely got anything wrong. Friggin' PhD.

Penny turned on the water, wondering if her usual temperature would be too hot for the baby, if there was one. She stood outside of the tub for several minutes, contemplating this, and then made the water a little cooler before stepping in.

It soon became clear that showering was not going to be any more effective than napping at taking her mind off of the baby that could possibly be growing inside of her. She ended up standing in the water for twenty minutes and not even thinking about the water running off her head and getting in her eyes, her hands flat on her stomach, wondering, before turning off the water, wringing her hair out to the best of her ability, and wrapping a towel around her. She studied herself in the mirror and then opened the towel, taking in her flat stomach and wondering what she'd look like pregnant. She already knew what Leonard would say, he honestly thought she looked beautiful all the time, even when she woke up sick and hadn't even had time to put makeup on before he saw her. But some women carried a pregnancy better than others, and yes, Penny was young and healthy, but it didn't guarantee that she'd look proportional while in gestation.

Penny began dressing, deciding that she was worrying too much about her looks again. But she always did, simply recognizing it provided no comfort aside from the thought that she could be self – improving. Not that self – improvement would help her now. Unless she really did manage to stop drinking.

Maybe all she needed was an incentive. And whether she - they - were ready for a baby or not, she couldn't live with herself knowing she'd screwed up Leonard's child by alcohol in utero; Bernadette clearly had some level of resentment toward her mother for the pre - natal cigarettes. That was _not_ going to be her, Penny decided.

* * *

><p>"Leonard?" Penny asked later that night, rolling over to face him.<p>

Leonard was almost asleep already. "Hmm?"

She sighed, fiddling with the comforter. "I need you to tell me what you're going to do."

"Do?"

"Yeah," she said. "For me."

He sat up. "Is this some sort of dirty game? Because no offense, but it's midnight and I have to be up at six tomorrow to get…"

"No, Leonard," she interrupted. "Just…"

He rolled, somewhat lazily, onto his side and grabbed one of her hands. "What, Love Bug?"

"If I'm pregnant." Penny said.

"I'm still confused," he said, looking pained at his inability to understand.

"I'm sure this is going to sound terrible and childish and whatever fancy words Sheldon would call it," Penny said, "but right now? I'm feeling really alone."

"Penny – "

"Don't take it personally," she said quickly. "I know I'm not, but…do you think you could just talk to me? Maybe tell me what you're going to do if we are in fact having a baby? It might help me sleep."

"You know what else might help you sleep?" he asked, patting the part of the mattress that was right next to him. Penny smiled and scooted closer, letting him put his arms around her. They lay in silence for several seconds, and Penny wondered if cuddling was Leonard's way out of doing as she asked. Then his voice broke the silence again. "I'll drive you to every single doctor's appointment and I'll make sure I'm off work so I can go in with you. I'll hold your head through nausea and I'll learn to cook if it means you can eat foods that won't make you sick. I'll tell you you're beautiful even if you feel ugly because the rest of the world will know that you're wrong. And I'll hold your hand while you give birth and tell you that you're amazing because you are. And when the baby is born I'll take time off work so you can sleep and most of all I won't ever let you feel like you're alone, even for one second." He went silent, and Penny felt him kiss the top of her head. "I don't know if that's exactly what you wanted to hear, but it's what I have to offer."

Penny bit her lip, trying to force back the tears, and then lifted her head slightly so she could see his eyes. They held each other's gaze for a moment that lasted at least five Mississippis, and then she found herself able to speak. "Leonard…"

His face fell slightly. "I mean every word of that, Penny. You…you're my soul mate."

She nodded. "I know, that's why I'm crying." She pushed her nose against his chin. "I'm not sure I've ever loved you more than I love you right now." She saw him tip his head down and initiated the kiss before he could. When their lips parted, she smiled at him again. "I've had several pregnancy scares in my life, and this one is the most grounded fear, yes, and yes, I hope it's negative, but if it's not, just know that it's not because of you. If I was to get pregnant by any guy I've ever slept with, it'd be you one thousand times over."

"Well, I certainly hope so," he said jokingly, squeezing her hand.

"Actually," Penny said, "if you took that to mean I'd have a thousand of your kids before I'd have one kid with someone else, I'd have to be faced with that decision before I could really make it. Because one thousand kids is…"

Leonard laughed. "As long as you'd pick me over the rest of them if only _one_ kid was in question."

"You, next to the rest of those guys out there?" Penny asked, smiling. "I'm sure there's some other great guys, but in the world as a whole, you're a veritable mack daddy."

Leonard knew she couldn't possibly know why she was laughing, and so teasingly said, "you said 'veritable!' I'm so proud!" when she asked.

Penny, feigning insult, playfully smacked him before curling back up. "At leastnot in my experience, anyway."

"I'll take your experience," he said, pulling her closer.

Penny smiled, curling his tee shirt around her fingers. "That's why I love you."

**Remember to click that little clicky button! :)**


	4. Like an Echo

**New chapter! Sorry it's been a few days. And Roxanne, I think this is what you knew about that you hinted at in your review last chapter. **

**Also, I appreciate all the favorite story and story alerts this fic has been getting! Remember, I love reviews, too. : )**

**And I still don't own anything.**

Leonard, Sheldon, and Howard had just finished their game of three person chess when Bernadette arrived; the timing was, as Sheldon might say, so close to the end of the game that people unfamiliar with the Law of Large Numbers might refer to the timing as coincidental. "Who won?" She asked, smiling as she closed the apartment door, moved toward the coffee table, and, figuring she already knew the answer, raised her eyebrows expectantly at her husband and his friends.

"Sheldon," said all three of them, including the winner himself, although the aforementioned winner was the only one to offer up an enthusiastic smile to accompany his answer.

"Surprising," Bernadette said under her breath. "Leonard, can I talk to you?"

"I assume your surprise was a use of sarcasm," Sheldon stated at the same time that Leonard spoke, jumping to an entirely different conclusion.

"Oh my God, you're pregnant too?" the experimental physicist blurted, without thinking and before he could stop himself.

"Of all the possible conversation topics that the two of you could engage in, what in the world would provoke your mind into making that assumption?" Sheldon asked, looking confused.

"Who is pregnant?" Howard asked.

"Not me," Bernadette said.

"Leonard, you got Bernadette pregnant?" Sheldon asked.

"Bernadette isn't pregnant," Howard said. Then his eyes widened slightly. "Are you?"

"No, I'm not," Bernadette said. "I just said that." She looked at Leonard. "Who is?"

"Are you sure you're not?" Sheldon asked.

"Is Penny pregnant?" Howard asked Leonard.

"I think she'd know if she was," Leonard said, gesturing to the microbiologist.

"I'm very sure, Sheldon," Bernadette said. "But thank you for the flattering compliment."

"Is Penny pregnant?" Sheldon said in an echo of Howard.

"I don't know," Leonard said. "She got blood work done today and we'll know as soon as he gets home."

"Howard, as the loser of the game, you're responsible for putting it away," Sheldon informed the engineer.

"Of course," Leonard said, continuing, "she'll know before she gets home, that's just when I'll know."

"Oh, my God, but she might be?" Howard asked.

"Maybe," Leonard said.

"Leonard!" Bernadette said, louder this time.

"Leonard and I both lost, Sheldon," Howard said, bringing his attention back to the game, "why do I have to put it away by myself?"

"I was definitely ahead of you, Howard, don't even start."

"If Penny isn't pregnant," Bernadette said, "perhaps you can have Howard; he is acting like a child right now, and it's certainly not the first time." She looked at the potential father. "Leonard, I need to talk to you!"

"You can't keep the baby here," Sheldon said. "Or Howard."

"We don't know if she's pregnant," Leonard told Sheldon again.

"You must have some idea, if she's getting blood work done."

"_Leonard!_"

"Right, sorry," said the experimental physicist, getting up and following Bernadette into the hall. "What's up?"

"I need the keys to the new Vespa."

"The what?"

"What I gave you before Howard and I left on the honeymoon." She put her hands on her hips in mock annoyance.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Leonard joked. Bernadette gave him a mock glare, and then they both started laughing. "Here," Leonard said, pulling them from his pocket. "When are you going to give it to him?"

"As soon as his ego recovers from the last thing I bought him," she said, grinning.

"Such a trophy husband," Leonard said, laughing.

"Well, he gives me…" she trailed off and turned red. "Well, you know." She put her hands to her face in embarrassment.

"Ah, I see," Leonard said, grinning at Bernadette's blush.

They both turned toward the stairwell at the same time, distracted by movement in their peripheral visions. Penny was walking up the stairs. "Hey guys," she said, smiling.

"Hey," Leonard said, moving toward her. "Did you hear anything?"

"Yes," she said. "And you need to stop making Bernadette blush, that's a talent that's supposed to be saved for your girlfriend." He grinned at her and she returned it, and then she opened her mouth to speak again, closing it abruptly and frowning over Leonard's shoulder. He turned and saw Howard and Sheldon standing in the doorway. "Really?" He asked. Howard shrugged.

"It's okay," Leonard told her. "They…know."

"Okay," she said, smiling, taking in a deep breath and letting it out before letting her eyes lock on his and speaking. "Not pregnant."

_Not pregnant._

_Not pregnant._

_Not pregnant._

It was like an echo.

_Not pregnant._

_Not pregnant._

_Not pregnant._

An echo that resonated through Leonard's brain, fading to almost silence before starting right up again, like a new series of waves crashing onto the shore.

_Not pregnant._

_Not pregnant._

_Not pregnant._

Leonard was supposed to be happy. Leonard was supposed to be relieved. He had fully expected to feel that way, but right now he wasn't feeling any of those emotions. Instead, he was shocked to feel crushing disappointment shoot through his body.

_Not pregnant._

_Not pregnant._

_Not pregnant._

It took him a moment to respond to her announcement; he was completely surprised at how utterly saddened that the news had made him. But sad or not, he had to act happy and relieved for Penny, who, for obvious reasons, was smiling at the news. Leonard chided himself for wanting the result to be positive, as he now realized he had hoped. It wasn't fair to Penny to wish that. It's not like they were ready for kids. It's not like they were ready to have it not just be the two of them. It's not like Penny…_they_, wanted a baby just yet. "That's a relief," he said, putting his arms around her.

Penny bit her lip as Leonard hugged her, finally able to remove the phony smile from her face and trying to push down the sadness that was threatening to overcome her composure. When she'd gotten the news, she'd been hit with a wave of disappointment that she really hadn't expected, despite her small, niggling feeling that she had had upon taking the positive test that maybe, just maybe, she'd wanted this. She'd smiled and thanked the nurse who'd given her the news and made it out to her car before breaking down in tears. She had of course known, on some level, that she had wanted to be pregnant, otherwise why else would she decide that she'd look fine while carrying a baby and feeling warm and happy as Leonard told her just how okay a baby would be.

She had never expected to experience this sort of devastation. Never.

_Not pregnant._

_Not pregnant._

_Not pregnant._

This was a good thing, Penny tried to tell herself again, taking comfort from Leonard's arms around her. But she was never good at telling herself anything, because she knew the voice inside trying to tell her these things was a liar. She was at a good place in her life, and she was with such a good guy, the kind of man that she'd want as a father for her children when she was ready for them. She had tried to tell herself that it was too soon, that she wasn't ready just yet…but her thoughts actually managed to trail off, leaving her with a blank mind, a mind that was then filled with reasons _why not?_ They had been back together for a while. They were financially stable. Aside from the element of surprise, what _exactly_ was the problem with it? It's not like she had been completely opposed, as she walked into the doctor's office, to the notion of a little being, half her and half Leonard Hofstadter, preparing to enter the world and using her womb as a safe haven until he or she was ready. It's not like the idea was _that_ terrible.

And it's not like she wouldn't look good while pregnant, because, well, come on.

She pulled back and smiled at Leonard, realizing a fraction of a second too late how much she had failed to keep a happy face. She wiped away the two tears that had formed and suppressed the others, but Leonard had seen them. "Are you okay?"

She nodded, smiling. "I'm just…I'm just so relieved, you know?"

Leonard's expression changed for a split second, just enough for her to notice but not long enough for her to read it. Then he smiled. "Good," he said, slowly rubbing her arms from shoulder to elbow. "I'm glad you're happy."

**I feel like I should share a fun fact once in a while – the rough draft of this chapter took me an hour to write, and it was 987 words at that point. :D**

**Review, pretty please. Click on the clicky button! :)**


	5. Never Have I Ever

**Totally didn't realize it had been three days since I updated this, sorry to make you all wait! And again, I appreciate all the author and story alerts I've gotten, as well as all of the reviews. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far! : )**

**I still don't own anything. If I owned the show things would be slightly different…just slightly…you know. ;)**

"Never have I ever lost my virginity in a Camry," Penny said.

"I hate you," Bernadette said, lowering a finger.

"What if you're not sure what kind of car it was?" Cheryl asked.

"Eh, leave it. You're losing anyway," Bernadette pointed out. "Okay," she said, grinning, "my turn! Never have I ever…" she paused, then grinned Penny's way. "…dropped out of community college."

"I guess I deserved that," Penny said, shrugging as she lowered her fifth finger and went down to one hand. She looked over at Leonard, "see, I'm good natured!"

"Of course you are, sweetie," he said, grinning.

"I'm confused," Bernadette said.

Penny grinned, shaking her head. "Never mind."

"Never have I ever shot something." Cheryl proclaimed.

"Be more specific. I know you've played pool." Bernadette said.

"Shot something with a gun."

"Damn," Penny said.

"This game is weird," Leonard commented, looking at his own hands.

"Come on, it's fun. Sweetie, you're up next."

The experimental physicist sighed, surveying the room. Bernadette had six fingers still up, Penny had five, and Cheryl had two. He had eight. If he was understanding the rules right, that meant that he was winning. "Never have I ever…gone vegetarian."

Cheryl and Penny glared at him.

"See? You're good at this," Penny said encouragingly. "But try to say things that will hurt Cheryl and Bernadette.

"We're not playing teams, are we?" he asked her.

She gave him a mock glare. "Fine. Never have I ever been to see the Large Hadron Collider."

"The what?" Cheryl asked, cocking her head.

"I would take a point down for the chance to go there," Bernadette said. "It's not really my field…well, not at all my field, but it's on my bucket list, that's for sure!"

"The what?" Cheryl repeated.

"If you hadn't gotten sick," Leonard said teasingly, lowering a finger.

"For God's sake, _the what_?" Cheryl said, the annoyance evident in her voice – which to Leonard was already pretty high on the annoyance scale.

"It's a-" Leonard started.

"Particle accelerator located in Switzerland and France," Penny said. "The scientists there are trying to prove the Big Bang Theory." She turned too Leonard, looking proud of herself. "Right?"

"Essentially," he said leaning over and kissing her cheek. "Good job."

"Stop sucking up and lower a finger."

"I already did," he protested.

"He did," Bernadette confirmed.

Cheryl looked confused. "Okay. Moving on. Never have I ever slept with someone with a PhD,"

"What did I ever do to you?" Penny said, laughing. "And that's actually you too; you have done it."

"I've only slept with the cool stupid guys."

"Doesn't that sound like an oxymoron," Bernadette muttered.

"My Halloween party," Penny told her. "The first year I lived here. That guy has a PhD in astrophysics."

Cheryl thought back. "He did? Okay." She bit her lip, trying to figure out what else to do. "Are you sure? He didn't tell me that."

"I'd bet money on his not having told you anything," Leonard said, grinning at the other girls. Then he frowned and looked at Cheryl. "You slept with _Raj?_"

When the game was over - Leonard was not surprised when he won - Bernadette and Cheryl thanked Penny for the food and said their good-byes. "So?" Penny said when they were gone, "how was that?"

He shook his head slowly. "That's how girls hang out, huh?"

"When there's a guy there. When he's a boyfriend. If it was just us, we'd have talked about you, Howard and Ben or Tom."

"Who's Benortom? Cheryl's boyfriend? That's an odd name."

"No. I'm not sure if Cheryl's currently with Ben, or if it's Tom right now. She kinda flip flops between them. And I didn't ask because you were there."

"You guys talk about us?"

"Oh yeah," she said, like it was no big deal, grinning at him.

"About what?" Leonard asked. "I'm afraid of that big grin on your face. Should I be concerned?"

Penny gave him a mischievous grin. "No…"

"Penny…"

"Okay," she said, "Let's put it this way: if we were to break up, Cheryl would _probably_ want to come over and jump your bones."

Leonard cocked his head ever so slightly, a smile coming over his face. "Really! So you brag about me?"

Penny stepped closer to him, putting on her best seductive face, and put her hands on his chest, just below his shoulders. "Well, it doesn't take much with Cheryl but…let's just say this. They are…_so jealous_," she said in a stage whisper that Leonard wasn't sure was supposed to come off as seductive, but he was going to take it that way. "Yeah?" he asked her.

"Yeah. Well," she said in a normal voice, "Cheryl is, anyway. Bernadette's your friend and all, so she just grins when I talk."

"What does she say about Howard?"

Penny made a face. "Way to ruin the mood I was trying to create there, Leonard."

"You already ruined it by continuing to talk after," Leonard did his best to imitate Penny's voice, "_so jealous_."

She couldn't help it; she giggled. "Is it wrong that that voice of yours kinda turns me on? Just a little bit…"

"Probably," Leonard said, grinning. "Ask me if I care."

She giggled again and kissed him, then pulled back and smiled again. Then her face changed. "So," she said abruptly, "that pregnancy test…"

Leonard shifted his feet. "Yeah, I mean…" he drew a hand across his forehead. "Whew, right?"

"Yeah," she said. They both looked at the same spot on the floor.

"Can I ask you a question?" Leonard asked.

"Yes," she said quickly.

"Do you ever think about that stuff?"

"What stuff?" Penny asked.

"You know," he said "About us. About us later on. I mean one day…one day we might want that test to be positive, right?"

Penny hesitated, looking down. "One day."

Leonard touched her chin, drawing her face up so he could see her face. "What if that one day is closer than we think?"

"What if that day's here?" Penny asked, raising an eyebrow.

"That's not what I meant," Leonard said. "But you know…we could have handled it…"

She pushed her nose up against his cheek. "Do you want to have a baby?"

He was silent for a moment. "Now?"

"No!" She said, almost too quickly, laughing a little. "But…someday?" She cocked her head, giving him her sweetest smile. "Would you want me to have your babies?"

Leonard wanted to roll his eyes. He hoped she was asking him playfully, and not because she was insecure. "I've never thought of anyone else having them," he said honestly.

She smiled at him, leaning in and kissing him quickly. "You know what's scary?" She asked him.

"The fact that we're standing here talking about having kids?" Leonard said, only half joking.

"No," she said in a gosh – you're – silly voice. "The fact that we're sitting here talking about having kids and I'm not afraid of that. Committing to something like that, I mean." She looked at his shoulder. "Eventually."

"I think you're just not afraid because we're not talking about doing this anytime soon," Leonard said. When a long pause occurred and Penny remained still, he tipped his head in an attempt to see her better. "We're not thinking of doing this anytime soon, are we?"

Penny was silent. "Okay," she said slowly, "I realize I'm not often the person that analyzes everything. Well, not out loud, okay, but I'm giving this a shot anyway." She toyed with his undershirt as she spoke. "You're older than me. The older you have kids, not only is there sometimes a longer time span before conception, there's a higher risk for Down syndrome and the older you are when the kids grow up, the less energy you have to spend time with them. This girl Christy I used to…oh, wait, you've met her…Christy's parents were so freaking old. They were always using that excuse around her. No wonder she started distancing from them, they never had any time for her…her father's dead now, any children she has, as unfortunate of a circumstance as that would be – would never have the chance to know him. And believe it or not, he was a decent guy. You see what I mean?"

"Thirty is not old!" Leonard protested.

"Oh, sweetie, I know," Penny said. "But I'm saying, we can't do what your parents did and wait like, ten years before having kids. But I'm not saying now."

"Damn right not now!" Leonard said. "When people have kids, they don't get any time to themselves. We already have Sheldon; we have to think of him, too."

"Who cares what Sheldon thinks?" Penny said. "Oh." She nodded, understanding the look Leonard gave her. "It would be a big adjustment for him, wouldn't it?"

"Yeah," Leonard said. "It would take him a while to get used to the idea."

She shrugged. "Maybe in like a year?"

"Or, you know…six months?" Leonard suggested. "Not rushing or anything but…"

"Yeah." Penny nodded. "Six months."

"Okay then," Leonard said. They nodded in sync, smiling at each other.

"Or, you know, now."

They started at each other, Penny not even really sure that she had spoken aloud. Upon realizing she had, she shrugged. _Just run with it. _"Why not?"

"How about you start with why?"

"Well…" she looked down, then back up. "Can you promise not to laugh at me?"

"No."

"Okay so here's the…wait, what?" She looked confused.

"I'm kidding. Go ahead."

"Okay." Penny sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. "When I first suspected I could be pregnant, that other time, I was nervous. But when it was confirmed that I wasn't, I felt…sad. I wasn't expecting to feel that way, but I did. Just really, really sad, and now it's all I can think about. I see people with babies and people being pregnant and I keep thinking more and more that I want that."

If Leonard had time to think about her idea, he may have fallen on the side of caution, wondering if what she was suggesting was considered rushing things. But he had had a similar reaction to the false positive, and he wondered if somehow that was a sign that they were supposed to be parents. Never mind that he didn't believe in signs. He wanted to believe in this one. "Okay."

A smile came over her face. A shocked smile. "Okay?"

"Yeah," he said, smiling. "To be honest, I was a little disappointed too." He ran his hands up and down her upper arms. "A little you and me," he said, "can't possibly be a bad thing."

She stared at him for a long moment, and he wondered if agreeing had pushed her too far. Then she grinned, eliminating all such doubts from Leonard's mind. "Oh my God. So…what's next? We just…did we just…"

"I guess!" He said, looking surprised at their apparent efficiency. "We just decided to have a baby," Penny said, her voice sounding odd. She looked at Leonard with widened eyes. "Wow."

"Yeah," he said, the same expression on his face. Then he blinked. "Did you want to start _now_?"

Penny raised her eyebrows slightly and stepped toward him, putting her lips on his and her arms around his neck.

"Wait," he said, backing off and steadying her. "If we could seriously get pregnant now…" he looked around.

"Place of honor?" Penny asked.

"What deserves the distinction?" He asked, grinning, going to kiss her neck simply for lack of anything else to do while he waited for her to answer the question.

"It's gonna be right here if you don't stop and let me think," Penny said, backing away despite her contentment at what her boyfriend was doing. "You know," she said, "I'd hate for our kids to find out some weird story about how their lives began on the floor by my apartment door or on a couch. How about my room?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Leonard said. "We're having more than one?"

Penny bit her lip, then grinned. "Sorry. I'm getting a bit ahead of myself." She grabbed his hand and walked toward the bedroom. "Oh, and once we're in here you have my permission to resume kissing my neck like that."

"Oh, I don't know," Leonard said. "I think the moment has passed." Penny stopped, turned, and raised an eyebrow. "Yeah," Leonard said, drawing her closer, "that really wasn't believable, was it?"

She stepped back so she could sit on the edge of the bed and grinned at him. "Oh," she said, "I'll forgive you. Just this once, and only if you do one little thing for me." She scooted back a bit and smiled again. "Leonard Hofstadter – get me pregnant."

**And now we see how Leonard lasts on Girls' Night. Although he still has to experience Girls' Night with Amy, I just wanted to establish that Penny does actually have friends aside from the girls we see on the show. That last line was totally inspired from How I Met Your Mother, in the Not A Father's Day episode where drunk!Lily was all "put your melon headed spawn in mah BELLY!" Onlyl I didn't want to phrase it like that. Haha**

**In a chapter or two we will meet someone that a few of you will recognize. And I'll tell you right now, this woman that some (Brit, Roxanne, etc) will recognize will not be related to the question about the fic I'll post at the end. Just to keep that in mind. (And yes, I already know what the question will be.) :D**

**Off to nurse some other plot bunnies! But I won't publish anymore today for Brit's sake, haha. :D**


	6. Like a Jennifer Aniston Movie

**A chapter every other day is probably the pace that I'm going to be working at for a good portion of the fic, what with the winter semester at school starting up again tomorrow, oy vey, syllabus week/adjustment week. Fan freakin' tastic. But whatever, you did not come here to read of my woes (although it might not entirely bore you to hear that my roommate got me for Secret Santa and got me the red Bazinga shirt), you came here to read more of The Parental Ambition. So here you are, dear readers.**

**Oh yeah, and I don't own any of this. Just borrowing. I WILL PUT THEM BACK WHEN I AM DONE, CBS!**

**Okay, I'm done. :D You can read on at your leisure.**

"Leonard?" Penny rolled onto her side to face him and grabbed one of his hands, lazily curling her fingers around his own.

The experimental physicist opened his eyes and gave her a small, sleepy smile. "Hmm?"

She moved her jaw to one side, thinking. "I was thinking maybe we just could start living together. Like officially. I know," she said when he opened his mouth to respond, "you've had…bad experiences with that with Stephanie. But…"

"No, no, Penny," he said. "It's not Stephanie. I'm way past that. I would _love_ to move in with you. Or have you move in with me." He frowned. "What would it be?" The whole matter seemed rather complicated to Leonard, which, considering they lived so close together already was something of a paradox.

She put her head to the side. "I don't know. I really don't want to live with Sheldon."

"Neither do I," he said under his breath. "And now that you mention it, he told me we couldn't keep the baby in that apartment."

"What baby?"

"Possible baby," Leonard said. "This was before you got the test back."

"I forgot you told them," she said swatting him.

"I only told them it was possible," he reminded her.

She sighed, smiling playfully. "Whatever."

"So…I guess it'd be me moving in," Leonard said, realizing as he spoke that that wouldn't make much sense either.

"But would you moving out put too much stress on him?" Penny asked, feeling a little concerned.

"I…I don't know," Leonard said. "I'd be right next door."

She shrugged. "We'd have to go somewhere with a second bedroom. We'd have to move again, and uproot Sheldon twice."

"Technically," Leonard said, "we're not uprooting him. He's not the one moving."

She glared at him. "My point was understood, terminology is irreverent. Irrelevant!" she corrected upon seeing Leonard's raised eyebrow. "Shut up, I can't talk today."

"Why are you telling me to shut up?" Leonard asked. "I didn't even say…" He cut off when Penny put her hand over his mouth playfully. He stuck his tongue out and touched it to her palm, and she jerked her hand back. "Eew!" She wiped her hand on his leg. "You're disgusting?"

"Still wanna move in with me?" He asked cocking his head and grinning.

"I'm busy deciding if I still want to _date_ you," she said, looking completely grossed out.

"I thought you said you didn't see us breaking up!" He said.

"I didn't think you'd ever lick me…" she trailed off and giggled.

"Okay, I'm outta here," Leonard turning away from her.

She grabbed his hand and pulled him back. "Of course I still want to move in with you. But eventually…actually, pretty soon…we're going to need another bedroom."

"We can't ask Sheldon to move in here," Leonard said. "He'd go insane."

"Yeah," Penny said, sighing. "Unless we could convince him that he could hole up in here and live his wacky life without a roommate bothering him…but that wouldn't really be good for him."

"We could look for another apartment," Leonard said, "but do you really want to move out of the building? I mean…I've lived here for ten years."

"Why don't we just cross that bridge when we come to it?" Penny asked. "We'll move in here now, Raj could always move back in with Sheldon…or you could just keep paying rent on that place and just have your stuff over here. More of your stuff," she corrected.

"So…" Leonard gave a small smile. "Just keep everything the same."

"Minus the protection," she reminded him. "For however long we're going to need to. How long do you think it'll take?"

"No way to say," Leonard said. "As long as we make our chances good going into it, I don't expect it taking too long."

"I could be pregnant already," Penny said, shrugging. "So...you know. But just in case, we use my planner. Okeday?"

"Okay, Jar Jar," Leonard said, smiling. "Right. So, when can we start?"

Penny thought. "Um…Friday? No, Saturday…Friday." She nodded. "Friday?"

"How about Thursday, just in case?" Leonard said.

"I have to work all day Thursday. So if you want me to be in the mood, you'll have to take me to a Jennifer Aniston movie."

"What, so we can watch beach houses and rain only and fear of commitment and mistakes and regrets only to realize love was there all along?"

She cocked her head. "Leonard, isn't that precisely what happened?"

It took him a moment to realize she was talking about him. "Oh…" he trailed off, and when she grinned he became determined to have a coherent response. "Well, a beach house wasn't involved…"

She stepped closer and kissed him. "Movie?"

He nodded, laughing at her way of stopping him from rambling on and on about details that didn't really do much for his case. "It's a date."

**New episode this week for those of us in the U.S.! :) (Oh, and reviews are nice. Reviews that aren't talking solely about my A/Ns are even nicer. :D )**


	7. For Real

**New chapter! Don't worry, we are getting somewhere, I just have quite a bit of foundation to lay for this fic. :) Thanks to everyone so far who has read and reviewed!**

**And, supwise supwise, I still don't own anything.**

"Damn it," Howard said, throwing his cards down in frustration. Leonard and Sheldon gave a discreet high five. "Saw that," Howard said bitterly.

"Just face it, Howard, you can't beat me at Mystic Warlords of Ka-a," Leonard said, smirking and sitting back in the chair.

"Sheldon's helping you; it's not fair," said Howard, gathering up the cards. "Wanna play again?"

There was a knock at the door. "I'll get it," Leonard said, getting up.

"If that's Penny, he won't be playing again," Sheldon informed Howard.

Howard looked at him incredulously. "Thank you," he said sarcastically. "I never would have come to that little conclusion on my own."

The physicist beamed. "You're welcome," Sheldon said with the grin – if one could call it that – on his face, clearly proud of himself.

"Four for eighteen," Howard muttered, grinning at Leonard as the latter looked over his shoulder on the way to the door.

Sheldon looked confused. "_That_ was sarcasm?"

Leonard opened the door and looked at the person on the other side in shock – he wasn't sure who he had been expecting, but this individual would not have been on his list. "Wyatt!" He said, extending his hand. "Good to see you!"

"You too, son," he said, shaking his hand vigorously. "Can I come in?" Leonard glanced behind him at Howard and Sheldon, who were staring. Wyatt noticed them and waved his hand dismissively at Leonard. "Never mind; we can talk out here."

"How long have you been in town?" Leonard asked. He had just seen Penny four hours ago; she hadn't told him her father was showing up. Although he supposed he deserved that after what went down with Beverly back when he and Penny were trying a relationship out the first time.

"My flight just got in," he said. "Penny doesn't know; I figured I'd surprise her. Sound like a good plan?"

"Damn, she's still better than me," he muttered under his breath. Wyatt cocked his head. "Uh, I mean…" Leonard nodded. "Yes, definitely. She'll be happy to see you."

"Me, too," Wyatt, said. "I haven't seen her since she came home six months ago. And I haven't seen _you_, son, since before you two got back together. Now, it's all genuine now, am I right?"

"The entire time, sir," Leonard said. "I can assure you that this relationship is one hundred percent real." He cut off at _we're doing it and everything_, because while he was sure Wyatt would be, to put it lightly, _thrilled_, even Leonard knew that that kind of comment really wasn't meant for a girlfriend's father.

"Ah, that's what I like to hear!" Wyatt proclaimed.

"Hear what?"

He turned toward the stairs, where Penny stood, about three from the top, smiling. "Daddy," she said, coming the remaining steps and giving him a hug. "I didn't know you were coming."

"That's the idea, pumpkin," he said, kissing the top of her head.

She smiled. "I see you've met my boyfriend."

"Yes, well, it's good to hear you call him that truthfully, slugger," he said fondly. "I'm just in town for tonight; what do you say we go grab something to eat?"

"Sure!" Penny said. "I'm just going to go and change." She gave him an odd look, transferred the look to Leonard, and smirked when Leonard shrugged, signaling he knew nothing of why Wyatt had come either.

"Sounds good, sweetie," he said, patting her shoulder. "Leonard and I will catch up in the living room, if that's okay with you and your friends."

She nodded, smiling, and turned to kiss Leonard quickly on the cheek before leading the men into her apartment.

When she was gone, Leonard turned to him. "So…why are you here?"

Wyatt smiled. "I wanted to look at you and my daughter and know that it's the real thing."

Leonard smiled. "Well, you've come to the right place, sir."

* * *

><p>"So you've been back together for, what, a year now?" Wyatt asked around a bite of steak.<p>

"Yep," Leonard said, looking sideways at Penny. They smiled at each other. "Give or take a week or so."

"And everything's going good, huh?" He said.

"Everything's great," Penny said, taking Leonard's free hand under the table and squeezing it. "I think we've worked all the kinks out of the relationship, isn't that right, sweetie?"

"There hasn't been a single fight, so…" he trailed off, looking at Wyatt. "Your daughter's a keeper," he said, for lack of anything more intelligent on his mind.

"She is," Wyatt said, "and I am so glad – and I can finally say this with confidence – that she's found someone like you. I want grandchildren before I die." Penny and Leonard glanced at each other, and then faced her father again, but the fleeting moment was not lost on Wyatt. "What was that for?"

"What was what for?" Leonard asked.

"I don't know what you mean," Penny said at the same time.

"That," Wyatt motioned to the two of them with his fork. "That look."

"Oh," Penny gave a little laugh. "That. It's nothing."

"Do you wanna…" Leonard asked her, trying not to move his mouth as he spoke.

"Wanna what?" She said in the same closed teeth manner.

"Just kinda…"

"Oh." She looked at him for a long moment, thinking. Then she turned back to her father. "Leonard and I …" she began slowly, "have … recently been thinking about that."

"Thinking 'bout what?" Wyatt asked innocently, wiping his mouth with a napkin.

"That, you know, with us being in a…" she looked at Leonard, as if he could put words in her mouth, before continuing, "monogamous, committed, and mutually supportive relationship, having a family isn't … totally out of the question." Okay, fine, maybe he could put words in her mouth.

"Good!" Wyatt belted the word, nodding happily. "Very good." He leaned forward, smiling fondly at Penny. "My little girl's all grown up." He leaned back. "So the family…when's that going to happen?"

"Well," Leonard said slowly, "we need to make sure we're financially stable first, of course."

"Ah!" Her father said loudly. "So this is already being seriously considered!"

The couple looked at each other. "Daddy," Penny said, giggling. "Don't jinx it!"

"Well, you two," Wyatt said, smiling. "Makes an old man happy."

"Well, that's my lifelong ambition," Penny said. Both men looked at her, trying to decide if it was sarcasm. "Whoa, what's with the third degree?"

"That," said a relatively high pitched voice, causing the three of them to look at the next table over, where a young girl was looking at Penny while speaking to the little boy next to her, "that is PMS."

Penny's jaw dropped, then she snapped it shut and glared. "Excuse me?"

"Tina," said the woman, raising her eyebrows warningly at the little girl."

Wyatt's eyebrows took several seconds to return to their normal positions." "That was interesting. Now, if you'll excuse me." He put his napkin on the table and rose, heading for the bathroom.

Leonard leaned over and kissed Penny, just because he could. "We don't tell him we're trying?" he asked, assuming the answer from their previous conversation.

"Not until there's a baby to tell him about," she affirmed.

"Okay," Leonard said, "although that technically wouldn't be the time to tell him we're trying."

"Smartass," Penny said, rolling her eyes. "Oh," she said, slightly louder and looking toward the next table, "that, 'Tina' is _not_ PMS."

"Yeah," Leonard chimed in. "You haven't seen nothing…" he trailed off when Penny raised her eyebrows. "Yeah," he said resignedly. "That sounded a lot more supportive in my head."

She kept up her annoyed façade another few seconds, then grinned and shook her head. "You know you're only off the hook because I'd like to get pregnant soon and I need you for that, right?"

He nodded. "Understood." He glanced over at Tina, who now, if he was being quite honest with himself, looked like she was plotting something against him and Penny. It terrified him, just a bit; Leonard started glancing toward the men's room, hoping for Wyatt's return. "So," he said, looking at Penny and smiling, "we want one of those, huh?"

Penny smiled., glancing at Tina and back to Leonard. "If I may quote Jurassic Park - I don't want _that_ kid."

**Random tidbit for future chapters, all of the characters' mothers will be in this fic in some way, shape, or form. :) And also, a little known forgotten woman who I hope to give more life than the writers allowed her to have.**

**Review if you like. :)**


	8. The Auxiliary Location

**I'm on a Leonard and Penny high right now. Just saying. *happy sigh* Anyway…here's the next chapter! I'm still managing the every other day thing, but I'm sorry if a few times it take me longer, this semester of college is, as Amy would say, ca-razy!**

**I still don't own anything.**

The following morning, Leonard and Penny took her father out for coffee and then to the airport and saw him off on his flight back to Nebraska. "I can't believe he came back out here just to say hi," Leonard said, shaking his head as they returned to her apartment.

"He worries far too much about me," she said, unlocking the door and shoving it open with her shoulder simply to expend energy.

"He never came to visit before the first time I met him, did he?" At the shake of Penny's head, Leonard frowned. "He wasn't worried about you with Kurt?"

"He was terrified. But he thought that if he came out and saw us, and then made any sort of comment whatsoever, then I'd marry the guy just to spite him." She tossed her purse and dropped down on the couch.

Leonard came over and sank onto the seat beside her, leaning back. "Were you that kind of person?" He asked her. She hesitated and then sighed, nodding.

"A little bit, yeah. But when he heard I was with a guy like you…suddenly he wasn't afraid of me getting married." As soon as the words were out of her mouth, her eyes widened a fraction and she bit her lip. "getting involved," she amended, too late. "Getting serious and all that…stuff…with."

"He doesn't want you to get married?" he asked her.

"No," Penny said, "he does; I just…" she shook her head, not liking how that sounded either. "And when I say 'he does' I don't mean he's pressuring us into anything, it's just that he wouldn't be opposed, but you know, _I _am most definitely not saying…"

"You don't want to get married?" Leonard was confused.

"I didn't say that either!" Penny snapped, getting up off the couch. She went to her room and slammed the door.

Leonard remained on the couch. "That was odd," he said to himself. _What's going on with you, Penny? _ She'd changed the word 'married' to 'involved' and Leonard's curiosity had caused her to get that mad? He was simply asking about her father and his views on Penny's life, _it's not like I proposed. And it's not like I asked her anything that someone in a relationship doesn't have a right to know._

Sighing, he got up and went to her bedroom door and knocked. "Penny?"

Pause.

"Penny?"

"Come in," came the slightly muffled voice.

Leonard cautiously entered her room. She was sitting on the bed, cross-legged, holding her knees. "Hey, what happened?" he asked her.

"I don't know," she said, shaking her head. She didn't look at him. "I guess I didn't know how you'd take what I said. Like we have to get married, or something."

"We can," Leonard said, reaching out and stroking her arm.

She looked up at him. "Sure we _can_. We don't have to."

Leonard shifted his weight. "We don't have to if you don't want to."

"We don't have to if _you_ don't want to," she said quickly. "I wasn't asking you to."

"Wait," Leonard said, putting up a hand. "We both need to stop talking. We're not making any sense."

"I mentioned my dad wanting me to get married; that didn't bother you?"

"Your diction? No, don't all parents want their kids to get married?"

"So you're not freaked out that I said that?"

Leonard was so confused. "No…would you have freaked out if I had said that?"

"No." Penny looked at him. "Not anymore."

He shifted his weight, suddenly nervous about the answer that he really already knew the answer to. "So…do you _want_ to get married?"

"Well, why not?" She asked, still not thinking he was serious. "We love each other, and while I'm sure I'm not pregnant yet because it takes a few weeks for a body to get back into the swing of things after stopping the pill, we _are_ trying to have a baby together. It's not like a lot of things make more sense."

Leonard raised his eyebrows slightly. "So let's do it, then."

She started, looking at him in shock. "Really?"

He shrugged. "I said we could, didn't I?"

"Wait," Penny said, putting a hand on his arm. "You're asking me? Like, right now?"

He cocked his head. "Is it not romantic enough?"

"_Really_?"

She looked excited. Leonard figured that had to be good. "Well…yeah," he said, still a bit confused.

His confusion evaporated when she flung herself on top of him, pinning him down and holding the top of his jacket, rendering him unable to move his neck as she planted a firm kiss on his mouth. She kept kissing him aggressively, one leg on either side of him and leaning all of her weight on her upper body, pinning him by his chest.

"Penny," he mumbled, using his hands to gently push her back by her shoulders. "I'm sliding off the bed."

Penny got off of him so he could reposition. "So," she said leaning over him, one arm on either side of his chest, "when do I get my ring?"

He smiled up at her, relieved beyond belief at the joy on her face. "Soon. This wasn't planned, you know."

"Oh yeah?" she said, smiling. "When was it going to happen, then?"

"I don't know," he said, shrugging playfully. "Eventually. Like maybe it had possibly crossed my mind once or twice."

"I love you," she said, putting a finger to his lips. "And don't say 'I know' because I know you know."

He grinned. "I love you too, Penny."

"I know," she said, way too proud of herself.

"You ought to," he joked. "I said it first."

"So," she said, almost shyly, looking down at him. Leonard thought that her expression was funny. She was straddling him; with her forearms on his chest she had him pinned down to the bed. And she was shyly looking at him for advice on how to proceed. He decided to kid her a little.

"You want to celebrate in Switzerland?" He asked her. "Right now?"

"Oh, shut up," she said, grinning, and leaning down to kiss him again, sliding her hands under his shirt. "Right here's fine."

"An auxillary location," he said. "Whenever Switzerland is not ready at hand."

Penny gave a playfull rolling of the eyes, then closed them and leaned even farther over. "Stop with the talking and kiss me."

He did as he was told. "May I ask you a question?"

She sighed, feigning anger. "Yes, my little homunculus, you can."

Leonard smiled up at her. "Well, one, you actually make that term sound sweet. And two…" he grinned. "You're gonna be Mrs. Penny Hofstadter."

It was amazing to Leonard how quickly and completely Penny blushed. "Stop it!" she said playfully, breaking out into an even bigger grin. She grabbed both of his hands and squeezed them, smiling down at him.

He let the moment linger before speaking. "Penny?"

"Yeah?" she asked, almost shyly.

Leonard smirked. "Stop with the grinning and kiss me."


	9. A Russian Rocket Reality

**Sorry this chapter is a little on the short side; I have spent the better part of my day freaking out with my fellow Snowflake Snugglers about the 100****th**** episode and making a Shamy fan video, but in the last half hour of the day, I have managed to keep up with my promise to update every other day. So here you are! This chapter introduces one of the other plots.**

**And, big surprise, I still don't own anything.**

"So guess what?" Howard asked the group later that day, surveying the room. The group was sitting in 4A with Chinese food, and their conversation had been tracking fairly naturally from one topic to another, with no awkward moments, mini fights, or even many "fun facts" interjected from Sheldon. As it rarely did transition so smoothly for this long, the group looked at Howard in both surprise and unison when he appeared ready to change the topic.

"What?" Bernadette asked, glancing at him and cocking her head a bit.

"You know already," He told her.

Her face fell slightly, and she looked down at her food again, speaking in a quiet voice. "Oh. Right."

"Okay now I'm sensing that this isn't good news," Penny said, giving Leonard a quick glance. They weren't planning on announcing their news to the group just yet, and now she was extra glad that they'd decided to wait.

"No, no!" Howard said. "It's good news. Good news, I promise." Raj leaned over and whispered something in the engineer's ear. "Yes it's that, Raj, what else would it be?"

Raj looked at the group and grinned, giving them a thumbs up.

"So this…_is_ good news," Leonard said, looking from Bernadette to Howard to Raj and then back to the microbiologist, who didn't look extremely happy.

"It's great news," Bernadette admitted. "I have to be honest about that."

Howard took her hand and squeezed it, then looked at the group again. "Drumroll, please?"

"No," Penny said flat out. He feigned hurt, and she sighed, glanced at Amy, and the two of them beat their knees for a few seconds before the engineer spoke again. "I'm going to space!"

Penny, Leonard, and Amy's jaws dropped at the same time. "What?"

"I know!" He grinned. "And Raj is coming with me!"

"Wait, how?" Leonard asked.

"Yeah, didn't NASA decide to stop sending people to space?" Penny asked. "Or did they finally find out about you stealing stuff for your own perverted reasons and want to zap you out of here before you cause a raise in crime rate because all the cops are so busy chasing you that they can't go after the delinquents?"

"Like your brother?" Sheldon said pointedly.

Penny looked at him, then back at her food, raising her eyebrows. "Low, Cooper."

"No." Howard rolled his eyes. "No," he said again, "nothing like that. NASA pays the Russians to send our men up to the space station and…" He stopped. "We've been over this before! I was working on some equipment that they want to use up there, Raj helped, we got some strings pulled, and now…we're going up!"

"Oh my God," Leonard said. "That's great. When?"

"Well, we have to go over there for training, that should take a couple of months, and then we'll get to come home for a few days of course. Then…six month stay…well, that's providing that they don't have any technical difficulties, and it _is_ space so…" he trailed off when Leonard cleared his throat and he saw the look on his wife's face. "You know, typical…space stuff. Anyway, they expect it'll be a year or a year and a half before we've completely completed everything, especially since Raj and I apparently aren't your 'typical' space going fellows." He grinned. "We should be home for good in a year or two, give or take. To be quite honest, they haven't given us a full timeline yet."

"Give or take what?" Bernadette asked after a moment of silence, reaching up to adjust her glasses ever so slightly.

"Couple weeks." He shrugged. "Hey honey, we talked about this."

She smiled a very obligatory smile. "I know."

"Oh, Bernadette," Penny said, reaching over the table to squeeze her friend's hand. "That's gotta be so hard."

"No, it's okay," Bernadette said, looking at her husband. "I mean yes, hard, but he's always wanted to do this…and there are other things he's wanted that he's giving up for me. But beyond that…" She patted Howard's knee. "I'm proud of him."

"That's a much improved attitude over the last time," Amy pointed out, grinning.

"Wow," Penny said. "You're going to space...people are getting married, or," she corrected "have gotten married, rather...everything's changing."

"Not everything," Amy said, smiling at Sheldon. "Date night is tomorrow!"

Sheldon nodded. "I wrote the agreement, I am very aware."

"That's my boyfriend," Amy said proudly to Penny.

Penny smiled at Leonard. "And that's mine." Breaking his gaze, she looked at Howard again. "You know, I think it's going to take some time to sink in that you guys are actually going to be...well..." she searched her brain for a better way to say it and failed - "out there."

"Isn't it incredible?" Leonard asked. "God, Howard, what an amazing opportunity!"

"We're happy for you too, Raj," Sheldon said, leaning over and smiling.

The group, including Raj and Amy, turned to look at Sheldon in surprise. "What?" he asked. "Was that not the socially accepted thing to say? As I couldn't care less and everyone always has different opinions as me, I assumed that we are also supposed to be happy for Raj, am I right?"

"Of course we're happy for Raj," Bernadette said.

"Koala face," Amy accused under her breath.

"Then say so next time!" Sheldon said to Bernadette, clutching his dish tightly. "You people make me worry that I'm starting to think like all of you."

**Dear readers, never forget how much I love reviews. :) **


	10. Drunk History

**New chapter! I'm cutting this so close with the every other day thing, but I'll keep doing it as long as I can. : ) This one is a little longer than the last one, going back to focus more on the A plot. But the other plots will receive love as well; this is primarily a Leonard/Penny story but everyone will get their moments to shine, both with Leonard/Penny and away from them.**

**Less than three days until the 100****th**** episode! One passing remark in this fic is a prediction of mine from the 100****th****, if it sounds familiar to you, please don't comment in the review details about the 100****th**** episode, I know very little and would like to keep it that way. : )**

**And I still own nothing. Very sad, these disclaimers.**

It was three days before Leonard actually got Penny a ring. He hadn't thought _that_ much about marriage, as crazy as it would sound should he admit that to any members of the gang. He loved where they were and where they had been, and even though he didn't doubt how she felt about him he always thought they'd date for a while longer before he would even think about proposing.. Now that they did actually get engaged, however – at least…at least sort of – he didn't want to make her wait. He wanted her to have something to wear on her finger, both for her happiness and his own – that ring would show that, even when he wasn't with her, she belonged to somebody. Leonard briefly wondered if, should his thoughts be recorded, people would be angry with him for that sort of thinking. No matter how old fashioned Sheldon called him, what with his desire for a family, he wasn't so stuck in the old days that he actually thought women should be _owned_ by the men at their sides; at the same time he did really like thinking of Penny as _his_. If some people had a problem with that, well, quite frankly, it didn't matter to him. Penny didn't mind; she'd flat out told people she was his before. And she was all that mattered.

He'd asked the other girls for advice on what to buy, but Amy had admitted that she'd be useless in this particular endeavor. "I like the extravert," she said, motioning to the tiara on top of her head that she wore on Date Night. "And Penny and Sheldon's comments upon my receiving this shows that she is not as glamour searching as I am." Bernadette, who'd jumped forward to give Leonard a huge hug when he told her, promised to keep quiet about the ring. Leonard had laughed. "She already knows we're engaged," he said, "she can probably figure out that she's getting a ring. I'm surprised that she didn't tell you about it already."

"She mentioned it over the phone," Bernadette had admitted flat out, "but she used to call me drunk when you two were broken up and…"

Leonard had waited a moment, and when Bernadette didn't say anything he'd asked, "what?"

The microbiology student had looked uncomfortable. "She used to call me in the middle of the night, really, really drunk, and she'd tell stories. Stories about you two being together, and in a few of them you guys got engaged."

"She was…said…what?" Leonard was so confused. "Why would she do that?"

Bernadette had shrugged. "Have you ever seen that show where they get historians drunk and have them talk about history? They make a story about it, adding in their own details. It's like Story Time, based on a true story but with their own spin. That's kinda what she was doing, although she's told me since you guys got back together that she used to imagine marrying you. So I didn't want to get too excited about this on the off chance that it was something like that."

"I see," Leonard had said. "Well, this time it's as true as the cosmological constant." Which wasn't even guaranteed true anymore; the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider could any day prove that all of physics was not what everyone thought. He wished he could have had that information back in the first weeks he knew Penny so he'd have had a better answer to "so, what's new in the world of physics?" Of course, that might have turned her off, but hey, she asked, and pretty much anything was better than "nothing..."

Bernadette nodded in response to his comment, not bothering to voice what he was sure were thoughts similar to his own, physics enthusiast that she was. "Good!"

So Bernadette had gone with him that following Sunday, and now he had the ring in a box in his pocket that was just small enough to make him constantly aware that the ring was there, and was busying himself wondering exactly how he should go about transferring the jewelry from himself to his...well, fiance. _Huh._ It was sure going to take him a while to get used to that word. _But anyway..._

He for sure wasn't going up to Penny, handing the box to her, and saying "here", but…they were already engaged, he didn't need to make a big deal out of it. Or did he?

He was at the counter in his kitchen, just standing there and thinking. He'd already shredded the paper on the water bottle he'd been holding for the past half an hour, and now he was busy scraping the glue off of the plastic part and actually trying to be neat about it just to expend more nervous energy. Busy work was all it was, and now that he thought about it, it was completely pointless busy work. You couldn't get that water bottle completely cleaned, and even if you should manage it, who cared?

He jumped when the door to his apartment opened without a warning knock. Thankfully it was Penny - one of the only ones to enter without knocking, which would have been an indication if such little time hadn't passed between the door opening and his ability to perceive the visitor - had it been anyone else Leonard would have grown more anxious. He wasn't sure why he was nervous; they were already engaged, and she wasn't going to reject the ring or just thank him. But he was nervous anyway. It was just how he rolled in the shire, unfortunately.

"Hey sweetie," she said affectionately, dropping her purse on the right end of the couch and coming over to him, holding a paper bag. "I got you something today."

"Oh yeah?" He asked as she slid both of her arms around his right one. "What would that be?"

She grinned. "I was walking home from work and I happened by this street vendor who was selling…" She let go of him with the arm that was holding the bag and set it carefully on the counter. Reaching in, she drew out "_Star Wars _mugs. I got you Darth Vader!"

"Oh, my God!" Leonard exclaimed, taking ahold of the mug by the handle. "That is so great!"

"Hmmm."

Leonard smiled. Penny always made that sound through her lips when she was happy. "As a matter of fact," he said, putting the mug down so Darth Vader was facing him, "I got something for you, too," he said.

"Oh yeah?" Penny said curiously. "What is it?"

"Just a little something," Leonard said, facing her. "For the greatest, kindest, most beautful woman I've ever known."

Her face melted into the most wonderful expression. "Aw," she said, reaching out to take both of his hands. "You're so sweet."

"Although we didn't go about it in the most romantic way possible," Leonard said, "a few days ago we made a big decision. A decision that couldn't have made me any happier." He let go of one of her hands and slid his own to her jawline. "And I have a way that you can show it to the world." He brought his hand down to his pocket and pulled out the box. "Will you agree to becoming officially engaged?"

She grinned at his word choice. "Of course, honey," she said, almost playfully. She took the box from him before he could open it and cracked it open herself. The next instant she was on the floor, sitting up but leaning against the counter, her legs off to one side, and sobbing.

"Penny," Leonard said, dropping on his knees. He had a feeling that they were happy tears, but he wasn't totally sure. He'd never seen someone…fall…in happiness before.

"I knew you were going to get it eventually," she choked, "but just seeing it…it makes it so much more real." With shaking hands, she took the ring out of the box and held it to her finger before handing the band back to Leonard. "You do it."

Leonard took her hand in one of his and used the other to slide the ring onto her finger. She raised her other hand to her eyes to dry them – or attempt to, anyway – while they gazed down at her left hand, destined to never be bare again. Then she looked over at Leonard, who was now sitting next to her, his right arm around her shoulders as he too, looked at her hand. When he felt her eyes on him, he lifted them to her face. "This is us," she said, holding it up and looking at him lovingly. "We look good on my hand."

"Yes, we do," Leonard said, kissing the top of her hand. She smiled, shaking her head from side to side slowly. "You came along and…I didn't know how you were going to affect my life." She didn't know why she felt the need to give a little speech; it wasn't the woman's job, but the words kept on coming and she never really cared about doing what society wanted in terms of gender; Hell, she told people she belonged to Leonard and some would have her head for that line of thought. But she didn't care; he was all that mattered and dammit, she'd say that if she wanted to, she'd love it if she wanted to, and she'd give a speech if she wanted to.

She always liked doing what would make some people angry, anyway. Hell, they'd made out in Sheldon's spot more times than they could count, and she hadn't done it yet, but was bound and determined to beat Bernadette at limbo.

But that wasn't important now; she almost felt bad for the tangent on her line of thought. Leonard didn't seem to notice, so she continued speaking without offering an explanation for her brief pause. "You've fixed me, Leonard. You gave me courage to open the box again. I love you," she finished, her voice cracking again on the final words.

He smiled at her. "I love you, too." They leaned toward each other, but instead of kissing they just rubbed their noses against the other, looking in each other's eyes. Then she shifted her position ever so slightly so she could kiss him, put her arms around his neck and moved closer. "Penny?" He said quietly after a few more moments.

"Yeah?" she asked him, drawing her face away ever so slightly.

"Sheldon would kill me if we did it outside of a bedroom, so…"

She cocked her head. "What makes you think I was initiating?"

"Well," Leonard said, "I just put that ring on your finger, and you're a big ol' five."

Penny shook her head slightly, laughing. "You have a point, Leonard Hofstadter." She jumped up and grabbed his hand. "You sure you don't want to consummate the engagement in his spot?"

Leonard motioned with his head, and Penny turned to see a complex figure balanced precariously on the left end of the couch. "I think Amy tipped him off that I was going to do this and he wanted to make sure that didn't happen."

"That clever little…" Penny trailed off when Leonard raised his eyebrows. "Never mind." She grinned and began backing toward the hallway, pulling him with her. "I hear we – are – going – to – get – married sex is pretty damn good."

**A reviewer had asked me if they were going to get officially engaged – and my answer was yes, and there it is! I am undecided on whether or not I will write the wedding; that's not what this fic is about but I may make it an epilogue type fic like I did for The Third Party Accumulation. But we'll see.**

**Remember, I love reviews! (Especially, you know, ones that are more than like three words? :D )**


	11. Care Bears and Cameras

**New chapter! I figured with the 100th episode being about Leonard and Penny (and it's freaking TOMORROW, people! *parties*) my every other day pattern would give you a chapter of this, then The Recombination Hypothesis, and then a chapter of this. Hopefully this fic can at least sort of contribute to the high that the 100th episode will quite likely give us. *woot***

**Okay, I'll stop fangirling over an episode that won't even be aired anywhere for another thirty hours and let you get on to this chapter. :D**

**Aaaand just read the disclaimers in previous chapters, believe me, if I ever were to own this show you all would know about it.**

"So," Penny said later, rolling over to face her boyfriend. Fiancé. Wow, that was going to take quite a bit of getting used to. She never really liked that word, it just sounded odd, but now that she had one it was seeming kind of nice. "What comes first now?"

"Hmm?" Leonard asked, looking confused.

"Most people get married before kids, right?"

"Yeah," he said before understanding where she was going with it. "So we should probably not try to have any kids until we're husband and wife, huh?

Penny grinned. "Husband and wife…I'm liking the sound of that."

"Me too," he said pulling Penny closer and giving her a kiss on the forehead.

She smiled before moving on to what was her original point, or, as Sheldon would say, her thesis. "But if we get married…weddings are expensive."

Leonard looked slightly to the side. "That's true. What are you saying?"

"I'm saying," Penny said slowly, feeling her stomach twist nervously, "that don't take this the wrong way, but maybe we should start a family first."

Leonard looked slightly hurt. "Not get married?"

"Leonard Hofstadter," Penny said firmly, "I will have this ring surgically attached to my finger if you think I'm trying to get out of marrying you – I'll also seriously doubt the credibility of anyone who has ever called you smart, because I'll marry you if it's the last thing I do. I'm just suggesting that we stay engaged-that doesn't cost anything-and live together, and have a baby, but then we can get married when we have the money. Or we could elope, but that's such a quick, no-big-deal thing. I want marrying you to be planned out, first degree."

Leonard smirked. "First degree marriage? Is that even a term?"

"If 'emotional chafing' is a term, then yes, I feel like I can claim 'first degree marriage'." Penny said, smiling.

Leonard smiled, then sucked in a breath and bit his lip. "But you know, 'shotgun wedding' is also a term…and unless Howard's _really_ creepy, there's no way to prove we had this conversation."

"So we announce our engagement. Even if I'm pregnant now, timing will work out that they'll know that that isn't why we were getting married; we haven't been trying long enough for us to know I'm pregnant if that is so, so anyone who says that clearly does not have a measurable I.Q."

"Okay," Leonard yanwed. "And you're starting to sound like Amy, just so you know." Penny grinned as Leonard continued. "You're right, we haven't told anyone to set a date yet…or even told our families anything, even the fact that we're engaged, so we could work this out. But a baby is a lot more of a…physical commitment than marriage. At least it is – will be – for you. And it's a lot of responsibility, too, for the both of us. Are we ready for that? Are _you_ ready for that?" He looked down at their hands. "I mean, if that's what you want to do, well, to be honest, I would love to have a child with you. I've wanted that for longer than it's logical to admit. But I don't want you to go through something you're not ready for, mentally, physically, or emotionally, and while you wouldn't be alone, there's a lot of stuff relating to having a family that I couldn't relate to."

Penny was confused. "I thought we already decided we were ready."

"I think I am," Leonard said. "But it's going to be harder on you than me. And now that we've actually been talking about this…we never really had an in depth discussion on whether now is a good time. And I know I overanalyze everything, but when it comes to a baby, isn't it…I don't know…better to overthink it than have to look back at things and be like 'oh crap, we didn't think this through'?"

Penny was silent for more than a minute. She was thinking, looking down at their twenty fingers intertwined with each other, watching her ring glint in the light from little light near her bed. She'd once been afraid to say "I love you". Was she _really _ready –_ now_ – to make a lifelong commitment? A larger commitment, arguably, than marriage?

Penny decided that she was now the one doing too much thinking. Of course she was ready. It was _Leonard_, for God's sakes.

She looked back up at him. "I want to have a baby with you, Leonard Hofstadter." She leaned forward and down slightly, so their lips met. "And I'm officially ready. Now."

He kissed her back, sliding his arms around her waist to tug her closer, but she pulled back, craning her head up and away from him. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"I'm sorry," she said, looking uncomfortable. "But your comment about Howard…"

Leonard frowned, then cocked his head. "Take your tank top off." Penny frowned, but pulled the tank top over her head, revealing her bra, and Leonard put a finger to his lips. "Did you hear anything?" he asked after a minute.

She shook her head. "No camera zoom sounds, if that's what you mean."

Leonard nodded. "So if we knock these stuffed animals down to where any webcams could only record the ceiling…"

Penny reached over and swept her Care Bears off the bedside table. "Okay," she said, lowering herself down next to him again. "_Now_ I'm ready." Leonard was smirking, and Penny feigned hurt. "What?"

"Just..." he collected himself. "Just the way you swept them off the night stand, like they do all dramatically in the movies. Only, of course, it's usually the guy doing it, and then that's where they end up...doing it..." He was about ready to trail off anyway, but Penny didn't let him make that decision himself, putting her mouth on his and sliding her hands around his jawbone.

"You've always wanted to do that, haven't you?" Penny asked, looking amused as she pulled back.

"Sweeping things off of a table?" Leonard shrugged. "A little bit."

She grinned. "Next time, then."

He smiled back. "Sounds like a plan."

**I'm definitely going to add in more of the other little subplots in the next few chapters, and we're very close to meeting the Big Bang Theory character that, unfortunately, wasn't.**


	12. The Same Deviled Egg

**So how awesome was that 100****th**** episode yesterday? (And please do not answer that question in a review, it was rhetorical. But if you wanna talk about it PM me **_**separately**_** from your review, please.) :D I fear my writing is going to start looking Cow – awful because we're getting so much actual show goodness, but I promised you guys the babyfic and you're going to get the babyfic. : )**

**And I still don't own anything.**

"You guys are getting married?" Howard said, his voice loudly betraying his shock.

"Yep," Penny said, holding her hand out to show him and the other two guys the ring.

"Oh, Leonard, big mistake," Howard said, shaking his head. "You don't know what you're getting into."

"Yes, he does," Penny said.

"And you do?" Leonard asked at the same time, sliding his arm around Penny's waist. She curled one of her arms around his neck, and their other two hands linked fingers. "I thought he was making a pun," she said to him, feeling the need to explain her comment. Leonard made a face, and she giggled.

"Leonard," Howard explained, talking slightly slower than usual as if Leonard was missing something big, "remember when you were dating Stephanie Barnett and I likened it to eating the same deviled egg over and over again? Marriage is just that, only much more difficult to end. Do you really want to be with the same woman all your life?"

"I feel if Bernadette was here, she'd be in the middle of painfully ending your life," Penny said.

"I'm just making sure Leonard is as educated in the options as I am," Howard said, holding up a hand in defense.

"You know, Howard?" Leonard said. "I really do." He smiled at Penny. "I do."

"A bit early for that," she said.

It took him a moment, and then he shook his head. "You know what I mean."

"I had a feeling you two would get this idea eventually," Sheldon said, shaking his head from his spot. "I'm afraid I have to forbid it."

"Forbode it," Raj said, swallowing a gulp of his beer and setting it down on the coffee table.

"What?" Leonard asked, furrowing his eyebrow in Raj's direction. "You can't do that, Sheldon."

"Don't get me wrong, I've come to adjust rather pleasantly to the nature of your relationship now," Sheldon said. "However, marriage means that you two will officially be living together, and therefore aspects of my life will have to change." He looked at Raj. "And it _was_ 'forbid'. Seriously, your native language is English!"

"Sheldon," Leonard said, "what we want to do is not within your ability nor jurisdiction to…"

"Honey, honey," Penny said quietly, putting a hand on Leonard's chest to silence him. "I got this." She looked at Sheldon. "Sheldon, honey, if Leonard and I were married, it would be the last time you'd have to adjust-ever. None of the flip flopping that was happening when we were together, then broken up again. You know us, we're afraid of commitment..._I'm_ afraid of commitment," she amended when Leonard raised an eyebrow. "If I'm agreeing to this, I'm totally sure. No divorce, no problems, it _will_ be for forever. You'd have a consistent situation from now on. You could write up a new room mate agreement for until Leonard officially moves out, and you wouldn't have to throw it away."

Sheldon considered what she said for a moment. "Good point," he said matter of factly. "You two have my blessing. Also," he added, "I recycle paper, not throw it away."

Leonard rolled his eyes as Penny turned to him and grinned. "Sheldon," Penny said, "we're not getting married yet anyway. It's more of a 'yeah, eventually' thing. The baby is going to come first. I mean, that's a bigger adjustment than marriage, if anything!" The guys turned in unison to look at her. "Yeah," she said, shaking her head. "I really didn't think that through."

"No, you did not," Leonard said. "Starting with flat out telling him he can write a new agreement.

* * *

><p>"So it's Night One of planned trying," Penny said to Leonard, "as opposed to just deciding to do it. Well, in six hours it will be. Do you want to do anything fancy?"<p>

"What?" he asked her, looking confused.

"Please save all discussions of anything of the kinky persuasion until I'm out of earshot," Sheldon said as he walked through the room. He grabbed a key from the bowl and exited the apartment.

"Okay, for the record," Penny said, "I wasn't talking about anything like that. I mean, do you want to come home, eat dinner, do everything normal, and then just have sex without protection, or do you want to go somewhere, and have like candles and music and stuff?"

"What kind of music?" Leonard asked. "Romantic stuff or like, upbeat music?" He stood up from the couch and started dancing in place, grinning when he got Penny to giggle. "I'm going with no music."

"Really?" Penny asked. "Why not?"

"Because, what if the music's over and we're…" he turned slightly pink. "Not?"

They were silent for a moment. "You know, that's actually pretty likely," Penny said after a moment. "But haven't you heard of this lovely thing called a playlist?"

Leonard nodded. "Playlist. Right."

They grinned at each other, and Penny bit her bottom lip in what Leonard figured was supposed to be a suggestive manner. "How about we go out to dinner and then come home and just rip each other's clothes off?"

Leonard pretended to consider for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah, sounds like a plan." He cocked his head. "Penny," he asked, "isn't this the third or fourth time you've declared the closest night as the 'first night of trying'?"

"This is the real one," Penny promised. "I've been off the pill a little bit, we're engaged, we've got a plan, we're going to do this. Starting tonight." She grinned and put a hand on her stomach. "Although I'm quite likely pregnant already."

Leonard cocked his head. "Really now?"

"Oh yeah," Penny said. "I mean it's you and it's me. Are you forseeing a problem? Because I'm not."

"I see no problem," he said, smiling, "but watch there be just because we're so confidant otherwise." Penny's face fell. "I don't mean it like that," he said quickly, dropping back down onto the couch and grabbing her hands. "You know I overthink stuff. There _will be no problem,_ you hear me?" She nodded. "Good," Leonard said. "Because like you said, it's us. Penny and Leonard are done with having problems, right?"

She smiled and leaned in to give him a quick kiss. "Right."

**The next one will probably be up on Sunday. : ) Hope you liked.**


	13. Old Best Friend

**So this chapter was originally much shorter, but some free time yesterday enabled me to add more than 1500 words to it. This chapter is the first appearance of a 'new' character (who, by the way, will not be the answer to the question I'm posing at the end of the fic). For those of you who don't know who she is, I'll explain at the end of the chapter.**

**And I still don't own anything.**

Leonard looked up at the bright rapping at his door and smiled to see Penny standing in the threshold, dressed in a purple top and jean skirt, which was very similarly to how she had dressed herself the time that they…he couldn't remember exactly, but he'd seen that outfit before and it was definitely in a physics setting. After staring at her a moment longer and receiving a slightly confused look, he decided it was when he gave his lecture that Sheldon had decided to ruin the end of. "Hey, honey," he said, desperately trying to compose himself. "What's going on?"

"Well," she said, placing a hand on her stomach, "your possibly pregnant love bug over here wanted to know if she could eat her lunch in your office while you worked."

"Well, you can just go and tell my possibly pregnant love bug that I'm sorry, but I have a lot of work to do and if I wanted to eat lunch with anyone in the world today it would be the blonde girl named Penny soon – to – be – Hofstadter standing in the threshold of my office door."

"Ooh," Penny said, grinning. "So flattering." She entered the office and shut the door, coming over to sit in the chair on the near side of Leonard's desk. "Although I am concerned that you may have gotten another girl pregnant. Of course, I could forgive you if you told me that she was a gorgeous, startlingly attractive woman in the physical, emotional, and sense of humor…sense."

"And she has a way with words," Leonard joked.

"What are you working on?" she asked him, leaning around to try and see the computer. "More laser stuff?"

He nodded. "And this time it's actually for the university and research purposes; I'm not making a bat signal or sneaking stuff out to bounce off of celestial bodies."

"That's always a good thing," she said, opening her purse and taking out a sandwich. "Want half?"

"No cheese."

"Right." Penny removed the slice of provolone from Leonard's half and placed it onto her own.

"Thanks," Leonard said. "Just put it on the coaster."

"The coaster?" Penny asked.

"Sorry," Leonard said. "Overthinking again."

Penny cocked her head. "You keep saying that and it keeps making less and less sense. Why?"

"What?"

"That you're over thinking stuff." She shrugged. "I mean, you do, but it seems like your default excuse right now. Is that a physics thing?"

"Oh." Leonard shrugged. "I was stuck in a traffic jam the other day, right by the bowling alley where we broke up. And it got me thinking about how I overthink a lot of things. That's all." It actually had him thinking about that moment he was going to ask her out again in the hallway, when the Penny voice inside his head told him he overthought everything, but he wasn't going to tell her that. It would probably only garner a face or an "...okay..." He didn't need her to know that he used to imagine their future, and he sure as heck didn't need her to know his subconscious had it all going wrong.

There was a knock at the door, and Penny frowned. "Sheldon, go away!" She turned back to Leonard. "Well, that makes sense, I guess. When I pass that place I..."

"Leonard Leakey Hofstadter," came a voice from outside the door, "let me in; it's your old best friend."

"You had a girl best friend?" Penny asked.

Leonard appeared confused for one more moment, as if he was trying to place a familiar but long forgotten, and then his eyebrows went up and he rose, moving around Penny and opening the door. "Gilda!"

Penny cocked her head.

"Hey, Leonard!" said the tan – ish, dark haired woman who came through the door and gave the experimental physicist an enthusiastic hug. "How _are_ you?"

"I'm great, " Leonard said, and Penny could tell he was smiling even though his back was to her. "And how are you? I mean, look at you!"

"Aw," Gilda said, blushing, and as Leonard shifted his weight to the side Penny noticed Gilda was pregnant and, with the relief that came with that observation she was embarrassed to realize that she'd been a little jealous of the enthusiasm with which Leonard had greeted this woman. "Well as you can see, I'm doing _in_credible." She looked over, saw Penny, and gave Leonard a mischievous grin. "And who is this little…" she let her eyes fall onto the blonde woman's hand and turned to Leonard with a raised eyebrow. "Well, well, well!"

"Leonard?" Penny asked, feeling a little bit uncomfortable at the thought of her nerdy scientist having such a good previous relationship with this woman. If she was completely honest with herself, she tended to let herself believe that he really had never had any female friends prior to meeting her, even though she knew that of course he must have. One didn't go twenty seven years without having friends of the opposite sex – unless of course, you were Koothrapali.

Leonard shook his head. "Oh!" He exclaimed, looking flustered. "Um, Gilda, this is Penny, she's lived across the hall from me years and we're actually engaged now." He smiled at Penny. "To be married."

"Thanks for the clarification," Gilda said, smiling.

"And I might be pregnant!" Penny added, standing up and realizing with that outburst that she was a bit jealous of Gilda, who clearly had put the whole family plan into action several months – at the very least – before Penny and Leonard had. She extended her hand and offered the other woman a smile.

"And Penny," Leonard said, giving her a _seriously, chill out_ look and putting a hand on her shoulder, "this, this is Gilda. We were pretty good friends more than a decade ago."

Gilda reached out and accepted Penny's extended hand. The woman gave a firm handshake. "Pretty good friends, huh?" Penny said.

"Oh yes," Gilda said, grinning at Leonard. "We had some good times playing pranks on the older scientists and hoping they had nervous breakdowns so we could get their grant money! Now everyone thinks I have experience working with people with such problems so I get hired anywhere, but in reality, I was the one causing them!"

Leonard laughed. "We had some pretty close calls with that."

"We did," Gilda said. "So yeah, we were pretty close there for a while."

_Of course you were. _"Oh, well, what happened?" Penny asked, doing her best to sound sweet.

"Sheldon," they both said at the same time.

Penny closed her eyes and nodded knowingly. "That would do it. So…did you guys work _together_…or…just at the same place?"

"We actually did work together a bit," Gilda said, "but after a year or so of off and on collaboration we applied to do this big, multi – year long project together, but for some odd reason I was dropped from the project, and soon after that Leonard relocated to this place." She looked around. "Which was a good move, by the way, this building has _much_ better lighting, and clearly the women are much more pleasant." She smiled at Penny. "Congratulations, by the way, I'm sure you know what a great guy Leonard Hofstadter is." She gave Leonard a playful punch on the arm.

Penny eyed the woman, and then glanced at Leonard. "What?" He asked innocently. She raised an eyebrow and her question registered in Leonard's beautiful mind. "I never slept with her," he said. "I swear!"

"But in my defense," Gilda said, holding her hands up at shoulder level with her palms facing Penny, "it wasn't for lack of trying."

"Well, isn't that good to know," Penny said, barely concealing her sarcasm.

"Oh, don't worry," Gilda said, slapping Leonard's shoulder again, "I found myself a great guy, let me tell you. He gave me this." She put her hands on her stomach and grinned. "Well, the down payment. In six weeks I get to make the final payment myself."

"Six weeks?" Penny said, beginning to relax around this bubbly…scientist? She said she was working with Leonard, so she had to have been a scientist. The Leonard of more than ten years ago could never have such a good relationship with someone who wasn't in a job of high intellect – especially a platonic one. Something just seemed off to her. "Wow, so soon!"

"I know," Gilda said, smiling. "So, you said you might be pregnant?"

"Oh, yeah, maybe," Penny said. "We're trying, so…"

"Great!" Gilda said enthusiastically, moving her hands into fists in enthusiasm.

"Well," Leonard said. "You…you haven't changed. Why…why are you in town?"

"I'm working at the university now," Gilda said. "They hired me to replace the guy who had the nervous breakdown. You know, because of all of my," she wiggled her fingers, "past experience."

"Ah," Leonard said. "That guy." He looked at Penny. "I tell you about that guy?"

"You tried to," Penny said. "But I told you that you were killing the mood."

Gilda smirked as quickly as Leonard turned red.

* * *

><p>"So," Penny said that night, as she brought a bottle of water from the fridge for Leonard and sat beside him on the couch, glad that he had agreed not to drink while she couldn't, "Gilda seems really nice."<p>

"Isn't she?" Leonard said. "Both Leslie and Bernadette remind me of her, you know, Leslie's need to antagonize other scientists and her less than professional ways to use her equipment, let me tell you, this one time she, Leslie, that is, used a laser to heat up a cup of noodles, and…"

"Don't you do that too?" Penny asked.

Leonard stopped. "Fair point. But I did it first, so she was just copying my research."

"Maybe tell your mother about that," Penny joked.

Leonard gave her a mock glare. "I'll get right on that. But my point is..."

"And then there's that bat signal you used the laser technology to make."

"My _point_," Leonard said, holding up a hand, "is that she's like Leslie, and yes, I guess me, in that way, but she's a lot more playful, like Bernadette. Leslie would be like 'eh, I think I'm going to do this today,' whereas Gilda is much more of 'oooh, let's see what _that_ does'!"

Penny laughed. "Never try mimicry again," she said. "It's bad enough when Sheldon does it." Shifting her weight and bringing her feet up on the couch so her back was on the arm and her feet next to Leonard's left leg, she looked at her knees and then up to her boyfriend. Fiancé. _Dammit!_ "So you and her," she started again, "you said you never…"

"Nah," Leonard said, shaking his head and resting his arm on her knees.

Penny cocked her head. "Why not?"

Leonard looked confused. "Excuse me?"

"Well…" she shrugged. "You never seemed to pass up an opportunity in the olden days. Or now, but I mean, like, with other women." She grinned. "Now doesn't concern me," she said, using her foot to prod his side playfully. He grabbed it and ran his finger across the sole. Penny shrieked. "That tickles!" She jerked her foot away from his hand and planted both feet on his side, pushing him away. He jumped up and crawled over her, holding her down, his hands finding the places on each of her sides where she was most sensitive. "Stop it!" she yelped, giggling and using her hands to randomly swat at him. "Stop changing the subject!"

Leonard grabbed her legs and pushed them toward her so her knees were against her chest; he sat on the couch where her lower limbs had been and stretched them back out so they were across his lap. He rested his arms on them and smiled. "I don't know. I knew that she wanted to at times and she knew I knew, but it never happened. I guess it was just…_Gilda_. She was just off limits."

"That doesn't sound like you," Penny said. "No offense."

"I like to think that there are soul mates for friends just as there are for couples," Leonard said. "Not…not that I'm a huge fan of that word, but the equivalent. I guess I always knew that Gilda and I were meant to just be friends."

"You just now came up with that, didn't you?"

Leonard paused. "Yes. But it's a good theory, right?"

"Am I really the best person to be asked about theories, Mister Physicist?"

"It's _Doctor_ Physicist."

She laughed. "Lucky for me, then," Penny said, realizing she was a little out of breath from the tickling and taking an extra inhale before continuing, "because you guys really get along well."

"Yeah," Leonard said, "we did. And we kept in touch, a bit, after I moved in with Sheldon, but we both got so busy and…" he trailed off. "I do wish I'd kept in better contact with her."

"Well," Penny said, smiling, "looks like you're getting your chance."

He smiled at her. "I have you," he said. "I don't need to spend time with Gilda."

Penny's eyebrows went up slightly. "Leonard, I'm not jealous, you don't have to pretend you don't want to catch up with her." She reached out and grabbed his closest hand. "And you know? I'm sorry you lost someone you clearly cared about so much, even temporarily," she said, looking down at their hands. "And got a new best friend in…" she motioned with her head toward the door, "_him_."

Leonard laughed. "Sheldon's a super villain waiting to happen, that's for sure."

"But, you know, we love him," Penny said.

Leonard nodded, then looked at her. "You know, if Gilda hadn't been dropped from that project, I never would have met you."

She cocked her head. "Really?"

He nodded again. "After she was cut, there was a mass reshuffling of staffing and stuff, and I ended up finding another position at CalTech. It was a fairly complicated time."

"We got lucky then," Penny said.

Leonard nodded. "When that all went down I was a new PhD, just months since my doctoral defense, and I was terrified that this project getting rejected and relocating away from the only person who enjoyed my job as much as I did was going to kill my career. But…" he shrugged. "Everything just worked out in the end."

"Same for me," she said. "You know, dropping out of college…running off with Kurt…" she sighed. "I was so sure where I wanted to go…you know I haven't even been to an audition for anything for four months?"

"I know," Leonard said.

She shrugged. "I sure as Hell never expected to give up on that dream."

"_Are_ you giving up?" Leonard asked.

Penny cocked her head. "Sometimes people hold on to their childhood dreams for too long, Leonard."

"Still…"

"I came to terms with it," Penny said. "I wanted to be an actress because I felt ignored in my family; my parents always had to worry about my brother and drugs and gangs and my sister trying to keep her kid after that shooting incident with her husband, and all that crap that went down. So I started acting out for attention, same as I wanted to be an actress because they got attention." She looked away from Leonard. "And I'm not good at it." She looked back. "And people can say they're angry I gave up on that dream or they can say that they told me so, but I really don't care what they think. Dreams change. Sometimes because they have to, and sometimes because they just evolve that way."

"So what do you want to do?" Leonard asked. "I can't imagine you want to waitress all your life.

"I kinda want to go back to school, to be honest, but there's not going to be any time for that," Penny said.

"I feel like we should have talked about this before trying to have a baby," Leonard said, looking a little uncomfortable.

"No," Penny said. "It's not like we just up and decided, that false positive was going to happen anyway. It just made us realize what we wanted sooner than we'd have realized on our own." She smiled. "The two of us would have gone through a lot less pain if we could have had more false positives, if you will, in the earlier years." She shrugged. "But you know, once the kids are in school then…I could always go figure out what kind of job really does suit me." She smiled. "You'd support me in that, right?"

Leonard smiled. "Of course. But are you sure that's what you want?"

"No," Penny said, "but I have a pretty good idea."

Leonard shook his head slowly. "Isn't it funny? I thought I'd be spending years with Gilda working on a project and being alone but not _totally_ minding because I didn't know anything of love and I'd be surrounded by the very sciences that prevented me from knowing any such thing. You thought you'd be a famous actress…and somehow here we are." He looked at her. "Neither of us are living the lives we expected to live ten years ago, and somehow…somehow we're both happy."

Penny nodded, and the couple was silent for a few moments. Then she spoke, quoting Douglas Adams, and Leonard nodded in response; her words rang true to his very core.

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I ended up where I needed to be."

**Yes, I know there are a lot of Penny/Career shippers out there, but I never see her making it as an actress. We've seen her act. I don't think she's very good. She can't sing either…I don't see a place for her in Hollywood and I feel that a more mature, clear headed Penny would realize this and see that she only had that dream because she was longing for attention (which is my theory).**

**Also, for those that didn't know, Gilda was in the unaired Pilot, a female scientist who hung out with Sheldon and Leonard and had a thing for the latter even though she'd previously slept with Sheldon. I loved her and I'm disappointed she doesn't at least recur on TBBT. So I'm giving her life here. There's not much of her to characterize on, but I'm going to do my best to base anything I write off of her actual character.**


	14. Take Two

**Getting this up in a bit of a rush, tons of stuff needed to get done today and I still have a meeting tonight. Just a few short days until the 101st episode airs, and it looks ah-maze-ing! :D**

**Oh, and I still own nothing. In fact, the government could probably take this down in a heartbeat if they wanted to. Scary. But okay.**

"So what do you think of the new woman who took over for Doctor Insane?" Raj asked.

"The pregnant one?"

Raj nodded, "Aside from Sheldon, there's no other Doctor Insane, and no one's replacing him any time soon. I'm sure we'd have gotten the party invites if someone was."

Howard shrugged. "I can't really be looking at married women."

"Spoken like a true married _man_," Bernadette said pointedly.

"I really like your apartment, Bernadette," Leonard said, not wanting to have to endure a couple fight when Penny wasn't there; it was always nice to at least be sitting with one's significant other while another couple fought. "We really should hang out here more often."

"Leonard, please," Raj said, "we're discussing the new pregnant lady. Aren't you curious as to what she's like?"

"Well first of all," Leonard said, "I know her, her name's Gilda Bahr. Second of all, she's married and pregnant."

"Six of ten marriages end in divorce," Raj said. "I still have a chance.

"You guys are terrible," Bernadette said, grabbing Howard's arm. "And you really want a woman with baggage like that?"

"Not everyone is opposed to kids," Howard said.

"I thought we'd gotten past this," Bernadette said with a hint of anger. An instant later her face changed and she was scooting closer to her husband and gripping his arm tighter. "But I love you anyway. I'll always love you, you know that?"

_She finds out he's going to space, and she becomes a lot less confrontational. _"You are _so_ lucky she can't get mad at you right now," Leonard said.

Howard nodded, glancing at Bernadette and mouthing _believe me, I know_, back at the experimental physicist.

"So…"Raj said, taking another swig of his beer and looking as if he had missed something, "How do you know this new girl?"

"Yeah, what's the story on you and Gilda?" Howard asked, taking a dumpling from the box. "I don't _think_ I know her."

"Mmm," Leonard said, holding up a finger to hold Howard off until he could swallow. "You don't. We parted ways a little bit before I met you guys. Right around the time I met Sheldon."

"Was he the reason?" Howard asked.

"How e_ver_ did you guess?" Leonard asked. "Anyway, she's the replacement employee at the university, so she's come in to learn the job from the superior before her maternity leave, and she'll be full time after her leave is over."

"Why didn't you ever tell us about her?" Raj asked.

"Well, she was the only platonic relationship with a woman that I ever had, at least in a long term sense," Leonard said. "She was my one window into the 'normal' world, and…"

"Right, right, a nerdy scientist was your link to all that was _chic_ in the 'normal' word, sure," Howard said sarcastically, nodding. "Go on, go on."

"Well, Sheldon, he's the nerd who isn't ashamed of being a nerd. Once I got used to him, well, his strict rules on having visitors and my new demands at work, plus us living three hours apart, me and Gilda sort of…drifted apart, I guess," Leonard said. "And my inability to make our friendship work…" he trailed off and shrugged. "I really think that it affected my confidence levels in a way that I never really thought about before."

"Oh, I see," Raj said, nodding. "So it's only _mostly_ your mother's fault now."

Leonard thought for a moment, and then nodded in affirmation. "Sounds about right."

"Was she the reason that you were so upset when Priya forbade you to see Penny?"

"Not to bring this up again," Raj said, "but are we absolutely _sure _'forbade' is the word? It just doesn't sound right to me."

"Positive," Leonard said. "And I never really thought about that, but maybe. I know when I'm consciously aware that one person is preventing me from being in another person's life it really gets to me."

"We get it," Raj said, "my sister is a terrible girlfriend, can we move on?"

"Raj," Leonard said, "I cared about your sister quite a bit. There were just so many outside factors involved."

"And the biggest outside factor could be carrying your baby!" Bernadette sang out. Raj raised an eyebrow at her. "What?" She asked. "It's true."

"No, no, I'm over it," Raj said. "I mean, in all fairness, I guess I...I kinda have to admit that he treated Priya well. And to be honest, him dating Penny makes my life a lot more peaceful because I don't have to hide anything from my parents."

"What about the thing with Penny?" Howard asked. "Because your father might say you were just sowing your wild oats, but I can't see your mother approving of that."

Raj turned an embarrassing shade of red and stood up. "I have to go."

"Thanks for bringing _that_ up again," Leonard said to Howard.

Howard was staring at the door where Raj had exited, looking quite contemplative. He glanced at Leonard before looking thoughtfully after the astrophysicist. "Yeah…sorry."

* * *

><p>Penny had been in this situation before. Nearly a decade before she'd been sitting with her boyfriend, on her bed, holding a pregnancy test and waiting. Waiting for the result. She felt Leonard's arm slide over her shoulders, his eyes glued to the tiny screen. The amount of time that the package said it would take to show a result passed and the screen was still blank. "You did pee on it, right?" Leonard asked.<p>

She gave him a nervous glare. "Yes, Leonard, I did."

"Don't be so nervous," he told her, touching her shaking hand. "It's not life or death."

"You're one to talk; you could be the new poster boy for Quaker Oatmeal," Penny pointed out, gesturing to his own hands.

"Here." He grabbed her free hand with both of his and they linked as many fingers as possible.

When the result finally came, it was identical to the result of years ago, but as it was a different bed in a different state in a different decade and with a different man, this time it was a different result than what she wanted. "Not pregnant," she said in disappointment, dropping her head and giving a heavy sigh, inhaling immediately afterward to fight off the crushing disappointment.

"It's okay," Leonard said, rubbing her shoulder. She felt him inhale as well.

"Yeah." She said sarcastically, leaning against him. "Real okay." She knew she sounded bitter, but she didn't care; that tone would hide her bitter disappointment. There was no baby growing inside her. She and Leonard hadn't created a new life. "This is real okay."

"Hey, it's okay." Leonard said. "No big deal-it's only been a month."

"Uh-huh." She remembered her cheerful "and I might be pregnant!" to Gilda such a short time ago. Well, didn't she feel oh so stupid now.

"Penny," Leonard said, pulling her close and kissed the top of her head. "It's one month, you've been off the pill only a little longer than that, it'll just take a little time. To be honest…" he trailed off. "Honestly I wasn't totally expecting a positive this time."

She cocked her head. "You're supposed to be…positive…" She realized how odd that word sounded with the previous context that it had been used. "Optimistic. I'm the _realistic_ one."

"You're the _pessimistic_ one," he pointed out.

"The pessimist and the optimist," Penny said. "We're quite the pair."

"Hey," Leonard said, "don't make me tickle you into a better mood again."

Penny cocked her head and then smiled, standing up and taking Leonard's hand. "Take Two."

"What?"

Penny pulled him to his feet and walked around to the side of the bed. She sat down and tugged him toward her by his sleeve. "We gotta make a baby."

"Now?"

Penny cocked her head flirtatiously to the side. "Come on, Leonard. Your big ol' five wants you, and she wants you bad."

They shifted their weight until they were in the center of the bed; Penny wrapped her arms around his neck and began kissing him. "How long do you think it took Gilda to get pregnant?"

"I have no idea, Leonard said, pushing her shirt up to her rib cage.

"Well," Penny said, "Do you think it was fairly quick? You knew her pretty well, and sex or no sex, did she strike you as…" Penny trailed off when Leonard kissed her on the mouth, largely to keep her quiet. "the type to be…particularly fertile?" she finished as soon as she could.

"Penny, honey?" Leonard asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Uh – huh?"

"Now _you're_ the one killing the mood. We can_not_ make a baby while Gilda is…" he waved a hand, "anywhere in the picture. Do you understand where I'm coming from?"

Penny giggled. "Sorry."

**As usual, thanks for reading, thanks in advance for reviewing, and the next chapter will be up in two days, as usual. :)**


	15. Do You Remember

**Just in time for the hundred and first episode, here is your new chapter, everyone! I want to think everyone who is reviewing every chapter, we've surpassed one hundred now and I love you guys for it! I really appreciate it! And of course I appreciate those of you who review at all, it's really nice to know that people feel that the fic is worth leaving feedback on. :)**

**Sorry this chapter is rather short; it felt more natural to break it here than after the next section, plus I feel I owe it to Gilda to give her a chapter on her own with Leonard.**

**DISCLAIMER: Surprise surprise, I do not own anything! (And yes, I feel the need to put disclaimers every chapter.) :D**

"Do you remember when I wanted to have your babies?" Gilda asked, coming over to the table where Leonard sat alone and easing into the spot across from him, adjusting her shirt around her stomach.

Leonard smiled and nodded, wiping his mouth with a napkin and taking another bit of food. "I may be socially awkward, but you were obvious enough about that that even I couldn't have missed it."

"Yeah," Gilda said, stabbing at her peas with the fork and frowning when the force made the tray jump and a few peas escape onto the table, rolling with the slight slant and landing on the floor. "Eh," she dismissed, "I'll give the janitors something to do."

Leonard laughed. "So…" he trailed off, then remembered that this time he _knew_ that the woman he was about to ask this particular question was in fact pregnant. "When are you due again?"

"Three days," Gilda said, putting a hand on her bump. "But my mother was late for me and my brother, so I could very well be too." She shifted her weight. "I certainly hope not, though, when you've got an eight pound person parked on your bladder the whole being pregnant thing gets tiresome real fast."

"I love how I didn't ask," Leonard said jokingly. "You know, it's kinda surprising that you and Sheldon didn't get along, as weird as that sentence is."

"I'm just surprised we didn't keep in better touch," Gilda said, "it's not like phones weren't invented." She paused for a moment. "But wow, we were…we were quite the pair back then, weren't we?."

"We really were," Leonard said. "Remember that prank we pulled on the guy who was selling those ridiculously cheap laser pointers outside your apartment building?"

Gilda burst out laughing, putting a hand on her stomach. "I'm going to have to pee in like five minutes thanks to that memory coming back up. But yeah. We were a couple of crazy scientists looking for some amusement at the expense of 'normal' people...although I don't think that guy really fit the 'normal' bill." She grabbed a napkin and retrieved the peas that remained on the table. "Now that I think about it, it's either a great accomplishment or a shocking failure that we never slept together." She looked at him. "Accomplishment?"

"Accomplishment," Leonard said, laughing. "Considering how both of us were."

"Oh, true," Gilda said, nodding. Then she grew slightly more serious. "Did you ever wonder why we never did?"

Leonard frowned. He didn't want to share the fact that he'd discussed this at length with Penny, although he honestly didn't think Gilda would mind. But still, he felt he should give her _his_ answer, an answer he'd have offered up had he not talked to his girlfriend – fiancé – about it. "Honestly, I never did. It just seemed…_you_ just seemed like someone who, while I connected with you, our connection was just the kind that wasn't meant to be sexual. You were off limits, and I never minded that."

"I'd like to think we both knew that we belonged with other people," Gilda said, "but you know me, I want a scientific explanation for everything." She grinned. "So catch me up on you! Do you still work everything out on your board?"

"Not nearly as much – or as obsessively – as we used to," Leonard admitted, "but I use it on a pretty regular basis. You?"

"Oh, all the time," she said. "Remember I had that philosophy that the board could just tell me anything?"

"You swore by it," Leonard said. "Is that still working out for you?"

"For the most part," Gilda said. "Although I must say, all these possible baby names? The board is not speaking to me on those, and I have no idea what I'd name a boy. My husband has no idea either' we're so bad at that sort of thing. I think if it's a girl I'll name her after some sort of flower."

"Rose?" Leonard asked.

"Yeah…" Gilda said. "No. I'm not as into Doctor Who as you are, Hofstadter."

Leonard smiled. He hadn't been consciously aware that _that_ was where the name had come from in his mind. "Right, right." He looked at his watch. "Well look, I've got to get back to work; you take care of yourself, okay?"

She gave him an enthusiastic thumbs up. "Will do! Only a few more days to go!"

Leonard put up his tray and headed back to the office, thinking that the mother – to – be look would look wonderful on Penny.

**Hope you liked it! I know I try to update every other day, but my birthday is Saturday and I'm not sure if I'll get a chapter up that day. If I feel I won't be able to update Saturday, I'll try to post again tomorrow, but I'm sure I'll be able to; I'd feel too badly about breaking my pattern.**


	16. Don't Ever Doubt The Board, Leonard!

**Okay! I've managed to get a chapter up today, so I can stay on my updating schedule. :) I'm going to be adding in canon facts as we get them in the episodes (most of this fic was written months ago so I have to update and add stuff in), so those of you who see episodes later than those of us in the U.S., I figured I should warn (although you probably figured it out already) that I'm operating under the United States schedule.**

**DISCLAIMER: Today is my birthday, and while I got another TBBT tee shirt and the trivia game, I was not gifted the rights to the show. So I still don't own anything. (Hey, there's always next year, right?) And thank you to Joni for pointing that out. :D**

A week passed, and Penny planned to take another pregnancy test that Friday. It was marked in her personal calendar with a big pink question mark. She wanted to take it earlier, but she was terrified of what the result would be and wanted to make sure that there'd be no false positive to raise her hopes and then jerk them like reaching the end of a bungee cord's stretching ability. She still wasn't a fan of sharing her emotions with her friends, but she was just as bad at hiding it and the nerves that she exhibited turned into an elephant in the room that was larger than the "miniature" time machine. Gilda, who spent two nights that week, including her due date, eating in 4A with the group (and who hit it off surprisingly well with Amy) called Penny on it, and the rest of the group shifted uncomfortably.

"Even we knew not to bring that up in mixed company," Sheldon said to Amy.

"No, it's okay," Penny said. "She's right." Leonard reached over and took her hand, squeezing it gently, as Gilda apologized and offered to work out whether or not Penny was pregnant on Leonard's board. "That's why I was asking, anyway."

"I don't think the board can tell us if she's pregnant with any more reliability than the pregnancy tests can," Leonard said, amused.

"Don't doubt the board, Leonard!" Gilda said, completely serious.

"Thank you for marrying this one," Howard said, pointing toward Penny. Penny gave the engineer a thumbs up.

Gilda gave Howard a sarcastic smile. "Oh, why did I not get to know you better?"

"I think that's sarcasm," Sheldon informed the engineer.

"Thank you," Howard said.

"You're welcome!"

Amy leaned over to her boyfriend. "I think _that_ was sarcasm," she said.

Sheldon looked confused, and Howard nodded in affirmation. "Oh," he said, nodding to Amy. "Thank you."

She nodded back. "You're welcome."

"Wait," Penny said, shifting her weight and looking at Gilda. "You're going to figure that out on the board? Seriously?"

"Seriously," Gilda said, going over to it and picking up a marker. "Mind if I erase?"

Leonard shrugged. "Sure; it's old anyway."

Gilda picked up an eraser and swept it briskly across the board, leaving faint traces of black marker behind. She took the cap off of the marker she held and snapped it into the top. "Penny, when was the date of your last menstrual period?"

"Excuse me?" Penny asked, wrinkling her nose.

"Oh come on," Gilda said, "no one cares!"

"A reaction like that usually means 'in progress'," Sheldon informed Gilda.

"Yeah, because _that's_ why I'm taking a pregnancy test soon," Penny said.

"Sarcasm," Amy informed Sheldon.

He looked at her for a moment before speaking. "I got that."

Amy smiled broadly. "I knew you would!"

"Penny?" Gilda silenced the group with the one word, the only sound being the _tap tap tap_ of the marker cap on the board. "Last menstrual cycle?"

"I don't need everyone knowing my…schedule," Penny said. "What?" She asked as Howard and Raj exchanged a look.

"Well," Howard said, "Sheldon kinda has your schedule marked on his calendar. So we all know, too."

"_What_?" Penny said, her voice coming out more high pitched than she had planned; she decided that all that extra pitch did was further make her w_hat the eff word_ point.

"The seventeenth," Howard said to Gilda.

"That could not be more wrong," Penny said, folding her arms

"What's the answer, then?" Gilda asked, folding her own arms over her stomach.

Penny looked down. "The sixteenth," she said.

Howard, Raj, and Gilda looked at her in confusion. "How could I not have been more wrong?" Howard asked. "I was as close as you could get."

"Actually," Leonard said, "if you're looking at it from a musical standpoint, you really c_ouldn't_ be more wrong. Say you want to play a B, and you played B flat instead. Any other note, well, any note at least a whole step up or down from the intended note, well, it could be interpreted as a harmony, but any half step away sounds way more wrong than any other note that could have been made. It seems to be odd reasoning, since two musicians, one who plays B flat and the other who plays E, the first guy at least knows it's a note on the B spectrum, but technically the other guy sounds better."

Now it was Leonard's turn to get stared at. Even Gilda turned from her frantic scribbling on the board to contribute to the stare down. "Thank you, Dr. Cooper," Howard said pointedly.

The group stared for a moment more, and then Penny turned to Gilda. "So," she asked the other woman, "am I pregnant, or not?"

Gilda was staring at her symbols again, eyes darting between them, seemingly desperate to find a connection. Then she shook her head slowly. "Oh, white board," she said, almost too quiet to hear. "If I start doubting you, then I start doubting everything." She sighed, and then turned back to face the group. "So, since your last cycle, how many times have you and Leonard had unprotected sex?"

"O – kay," Leonard said, getting up. "That's enough socializing for you, Gilda." He handed her her coat and walked her to the door. "It's late, you have a husband to go home to. And from the looks of it," he said, eyeing that her stomach was resting lower than it had been the day before, "that baby's about ready to join us and Sheldon will not tolerate any part of that process happening here."

Gilda laughed. "Okay, okay." She put a hand on Leonard's shoulder. "Thanks for inviting me over again." She grinned at the group. "Night!"

"I'll walk you down," Howard said, jumping up. "What?" He said in response to Raj's look of annoyance. "You won't be able to talk to her!"

Raj stood and whispered in Howard's ear. "I know I'm married," he told him. "What you seem to be continuously forgetting is so is she." He smiled. "Come, Gilda. Let's go."

"Wow, it's late," Amy said. She stood. "Ricky's going to be wondering where I am. Good night, Sheldon. Good night, Bestie." She nodded at the remaining people in the room. "Howard. Raj."

"Night Ames," Penny said, smiling after the neurobiologist. After Amy left, she sighed and began to wring her hands as she got up to put her food away.

"I'm going to the bathroom, and then we can go to bed, okay?" Leonard asked her.

She smiled. "Sure, sounds good." Dumping her trash into the plastic can by the fridge, she sighed again. Bedtime. That time when she tried to clear her thoughts so she could sleep, but her nerves about the next pregnancy test fought sleep and usually held off a while before rest overtook her. She was glad Leonard gave his turn on the free electron laser to Kripke so she wouldn't have to sleep alone.

Raj stood up and gave her a smile and a little wave. "Have a safe trip home, Raj," she said, smiling. He nodded, then his face changed to a thoughtful expression. He swallowed, then walked over and gave her a hug.

"Aw," Penny said, putting her arms around him. "You're sweet." He pulled back and smiled at her. "Thank you, Raj," she said, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek. "I feel better now." Raj raised an eyebrow and tilted his head. "Seriously," she told him. "I do."

Raj smiled, gave her another wave, and exited the apartment. Penny turned toward the hallway and saw Leonard standing there. "Did you see what he just did?" she asked, coming over to her fiancé.

Leonard nodded. "Boy," he said. "He really needs to get a girl."

**Again, I'm still laying foundation for some storylines while progressing others, and they will progress at different rates, so I apologize if the fic doesn't seem paced well at the moment, it's getting there, it just needs more foundation space so the progression seems more natural. **

**Also, and I'll warn again as we get closer, this fic is not going to be fluffy or happy the entire way through; every character will experience some sort of angst, ranging from general to relatively dark. So if it's not your cup of tea, don't say I didn't warn you. :)**


	17. Not So Silent Night

**Here's chapter seventeen! And only three more days until a new episode, the third of six new ones in a row! *woot woot* Getting this up in my bit of spare time today; hope you enjoy!**

**And because I'm paranoid, I'll say it again - I own nothing. At least nothing even remotely related to this fic. :D**

Penny liked sleeping in her apartment. It was quieter than 4As as it was not facing the road, and there was much less of a chance of Sheldon disturbing her sleep. Of course, Penny would much rather be in 4A with Leonard than her own apartment and by herself, but tonight was one of those perfect nights where she was in her own bed and Leonard was there with her, lying on his side with an arm over her stomach to keep her from rolling away from him in her sleep. She couldn't imagine herself doing such a thing, but it was still nice to know that he didn't want her to. She wiggled a little closer.

Despite the first pregnancy test being a resounding "no" – at least it felt like that – she still went to bed every night wondering happily if that evening's events had started the cells working inside her womb. _I could be pregnant right now _was still a thought very much in her mind. She smiled even though she was half asleep and it was dark and no one was able to see it anyway. She couldn't not smile when she was cuddled up to Leonard, in her bed, possibly pregnant, in total silence.

Well…her eyes opened. Not _total _silence, evidently. Penny sat up, eyes wide, listening and shaking her head to clear the sleepiness. When she determined what the sound was, she craned her neck around to see Leonard. "Pssst. Leonard."

Leonard was in a deep sleep too, and when he felt himself being shaken awake his eyes flew open, disappointed that he didn't get to finish…well, he could no longer remember what he'd been dreaming about, but he did regret not knowing what happened. "Penny?"

"Wake up!"

"Hmmm?" he asked, closing his eyes again and then opening one back up. Penny was sitting up, looking down at him and looking slightly annoyed.

"Answer the phone."

"Huh?"

"Your phone is ringing," she said. "Pick up, and for the love of Cow, take off that Joker ringtone."

Leonard groaned, rolled over, and retrieved the phone. "Hello?"

"Is this Leonard Hofstadter?"

Leonard rubbed his eyes. "I'm Leonard Hofstadter. Who is this? Did Dr. Cooper get into the ball pit again, because while I'll gladly come and get him you really should change the pass code on your security system."

There was a long silence. "What?"

"Oh." Penny smirked as Leonard rubbed his brow. "Never mind then, who is this?"

"I'm Mark, Gilda's husband. Um…well, she's going to have the baby today, and wanted me to let you and your fiancé know so tomorrow, if possible, you could bring her whiteboard from the university to the hospital."

"Oh," Leonard said. "Sure, sure."

"Great, that'll mean a lot to her," said Mark. "And sorry for calling so late."

"Oh, no problem," Leonard said. "I wasn't sleeping." Beside him, Penny raised her eyebrows, and he shrugged. "Okay. Good luck. Yes. Uh – huh. All right. Bye." He put the phone back on the desk. "Gilda's having the baby."

"Oh." Penny nodded. "Everything okay?"

"Well, okay enough for her husband to call and ask if I could bring her her whiteboard."

"_Now_?"

"No," he said, laughing. "Tomorrow."

"Okay," she said, still not settling back down into the bed. Leonard cocked his head, and she raised her eyebrows.

It was several seconds before he understood. "Oh, right." Leonard reached over and retrieved his phone, changed the ringtone, and returned it to the desk.

"Very good," she said, holding out her arms. He cuddled close to her and they settled back down, drifting back into sleep with their foreheads touching.

* * *

><p>Sheldon cursed his Vulcan hearing each time it woke him up late at night. Sheldon cursed Leonard and Penny each time they spent the night in 4B because there wasn't anyone to save him if someone broke in. It's not like he regularly interrupted their sleep...at least not multiple times a night.<p>

When he heard someone come into his apartment at night and when he was alone, the panic took over. If he was going to be killed, he'd rather not know about it in advance. That fear was worsened when a person came to his _bedroom door _at night and when he was alone. This was panic squared tracking upward exponentionally.

"Sheldon?"

He heard the voice as he saw his bedroom door begin to open, and he reacted before registering exactly whose voice it was. "The money is in the buttocks of Green Lantern!" He shouted, pulling the covers over his head. "Just please don't hurt me!" A split second later voice recognition kicked in. "Amy?" He sat up and turned on the lamp by his bed. Upon the dim light illuminating the room, Sheldon frowned. He wasn't very good at reading emotion, but he knew tears, and Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler was crying. "Amy, what's wrong?"

Amy wrung her hands. "Ricky is dead."

"Who?"

"The monkey," Amy said. "He's dead, and it's my fault."

"I'm sorry," Sheldon said, rubbing his eye. "But I'm sensing grief here, and I'm a bit confused as to why. He was a lab animal; you knew this was going to happen. You didn't even like him."

"He was an ass," Amy said, wiping her eyes. "But, you know, you live with someone, and they rely on you, and they drive you crazy but when they're not there anymore…" she trailed off. "I finally know why you keep on living with Leonard."

"Actually," Sheldon said, "the general consensus is that he is the one putting up with me, as ridiculous as you and I know that to be." Amy looked at him. "Sorry," Sheldon said, "we're on your problem now. So…Ricky." Amy nodded, and her boyfriend wracked his brain to come up with some way of comforting her. When it came to him, he sighed. "Come here," Sheldon said. Amy looked surprised. "Really?"

"Of course," Sheldon said. "I am too tired to get up and it's too late for a hot beverage anyway - but you'll be getting that tomorrow as it's not an option - but you do deserve my customary pat on the shoulder and comforting words." Amy moved quickly over to the bed and sat on the edge. Sheldon patted her shoulder gently. "There, there. There's a good Amy."

Amy let out a sob and leaned over until her upper body was on Sheldon's and put her arms around him. Startled, Sheldon hesitantly put his own arms around her. "There…there?" He tolerated the positioning a moment longer before easing her back into a sitting position. "Amy," he said, "staying in that position for a prolonged amount of time would be bad for my back."

Amy nodded. "I understand. And a good skeletal alignment is very important." She bit her lip. "Can I sleep with you?"

Sheldon cocked his head. "In the literal sense, or are you using slang for doing the dance with no pants?"

"Are you offering the latter?"

"No."

"Then the literal sense," Amy said.

"No."

"Sheldon!" Amy said, wiping her eyes. "I need something."

"What, do you want another night of spooning?"

Amy cocked her head. "Are you at least offering that?" At her boyfriend's hesitation, Amy raised an eyebrow. "As your girlfriend, I'm _asking_ for that."

Sheldon wondered if agreeing to this would be an example of the meeting half way thing that Penny kept telling him that he had to do. He decided what the Hell, they'd spooned before and it wouldn't be gentlemanly to turn her away after she'd come over in the middle of the night. And it was all his fault for giving her an apartment key, anyway. "Fine." She was sitting to his right; he reached his left hand over to the other side of the bed and drew the covers back, and Amy walked around and crawled in. He rolled to his side and they got into what he would never stop referring to as "that odd spooning position."

"I certainly hope this is better for you," Sheldon said. "Because I do not sleep as well on my side."

**Hope you liked it! **


	18. Walk of Shamy

**I almost forgot to update today; school is so busy and I'm so bogged down with work and tests it's ridiculous. But my last exam for the week is Friday (it's not even exam week, professors!) so I should be able to still update on schedule. Enjoy the episode tomorrow, everyone!**

**And I still own nothing. :)**

"You realize it's been like two nights in a row that we've slept through the night without Sheldon waking us up?" Penny asked as Leonard got out of the shower, towel drying his hair.

"Yeah, instead we got Stan calling us in the middle of the night to make sure we can bring Gilda her board."

"I'm surprised she didn't need it to figure out what was going on in the delivery room," Penny joked. She cocked her head. "Is his name really Stan?"

Leonard shrugged. "I actually have no idea. I know he told me, but…" he shrugged again and grinned.

Penny shook her head. "You should find out before we get there and save us an awkward encounter."

"Yeah, probably," Leonard said, looking around. "Crap, I took my clothes down to laundry and left them back across the hall."

"I'll go and get them," Penny said, putting her mug down on the nightstand.

"No, it's okay," Leonard said, smiling at her. "I've got it."

"You're in your robe!"

"So?" Leonard raised an eyebrow. "No one's taking the stairs this early."

"Point," Penny said. "Remind me again how you've got me getting up this early?"

"You think I look good in the mornings?"

Penny rolled her eyes, standing up and adjusting his robe. "You know," she said, "I had a sarcastic comment on my tongue there, but…" she eyed him. "You _do_ look handsome this morning…" she slid her hands up to his shoulders and smiled.

"Penny," Leonard said, "I have to work."

She pouted. "Won't it just put you in a good mood for the day? That's always nice, right?"

Leonard pushed her hair behind her ears and kissed her. "There, good mood." He exited the bedroom and headed toward the apartment door, Penny following him, barefoot, one pace behind. He put the key in 4As lock and frowned. "Whoever came in here last didn't lock the door."

"I thought you didn't have time for anything but to get ready for work," Penny said pointedly. "You have time to discuss the key, you have time to sleep with me. Yes that rhymed, yes, it was intentional, yes, I'm proud, and go get your damn clothes."

Leonard pushed the door open and let Penny in first. He almost ran straight into her when she stopped and stood stock still just two paces into the room. He glanced around her and his jaw dropped just as low as hers surely was.

Sheldon and Amy were shuffling down the hallway, Sheldon in his robe and Amy in wrinkled clothes. "I certainly hope that was good for you," Sheldon said, rubbing his eyes. "Because my neck hurts and I did not get as much sleep as I had planned." Amy opened her mouth to reply; they stopped when they saw Leonard and Penny and Sheldon shifted his weight uncomfortably while Amy dropped her gaze.

"Leonard," Penny said in an odd voice. "Is this the Pilot of _Homo novus Walk of Shame_?"

He put an arm around her for lack of anything else to do with his limbs and not wanting to fidget. "I think the networks will pick it up."

"Oh please," Sheldon said. "It's not the walk of shame. It is the duty of the boyfriend to provide comfort and I am not ashamed for fulfilling my duties."

"Um…" Leonard tilted his head in that nerdy way that had first endeared Penny to him. "What exactly _were_ your duties?"

"Not doodies, Leonard," Amy said, managing a smile. "Duties. Like jobs."

"Thank you, I got that," he said. "Sheldon?"

"Amy came to me last night upset, and I held her," Sheldon said. He glanced at Penny and rolled his eyes. "Oh, would you people just grow up?" He gave a deep sigh. "I don't sleep well on my side, okay?"

"Amy," Penny said, trying to take the shock off her face. "Amy, what's wrong?"

Amy looked at Sheldon, at Penny, and then at the floor. "Ricky died."

Penny's face changed. "Oh, Ames," she said, walking toward Amy and holding out her Arms. Amy slumped into the hug and Penny rocked her as best as she could. "I'm sorry, sweetie."

Leonard was still looking from Amy to Sheldon. "You guys slept together?"

"No, Leonard," Penny said. "They…" she trailed off. "That's a weird phrase now that I think about it."

"We slept together but didn't sleep together," Sheldon said, frowning. "Gosh, that is weird."

"You two just agreed on something!" Amy said, brightening for a second. She grinned at Leonard. "My boyfriend and my bestie. Maybe this isn't the worst day of my life after all. Actually," she said, beginning to ramble, "it's not any worse from when the little Vietnamese girl died, or when I got all that hair on my hands, or when no one signed my yearbook..." she trailed off and looked at Penny again, her voice cracking. "Ricky's _dead_!"

"Ames," Penny said again, steadying the neurobiologist. "You wanna come over and talk? I have some alcohol."

Amy shook her head. "I won't tempt you with the drink." She gave a small smile. "But talking would be nice."

"Okay." She put her arm around Amy and looked at Leonard. "I'll be over later."

He nodded, and the girls left the apartment, talking in quiet voices. Leonard looked at Sheldon and grinned. "Oh, for Pete's sake," Sheldon said. "Just because coitus is a part of your relationship with Nebraska over there doesn't mean it has to be a part of mine and Amy's. It's ironic if you think about it, those of us with traits that are actually worth being passed on…" his face fell. "Oh dear God, society's doomed."

"We'll see how Gilda's baby turns out," Leonard said. "She's pretty smart." Sheldon snorted. Leonard frowned. "What?"

"Oh nothing," Sheldon said. "It just amuses me when you're off in your own little world."

**Review please! (And please don't think me selfish, but I'd prefer a review to a comment.) :) This chapter actually was never going to be in this fic - or exist at all, actually - until yesterday when I saw too much potential in a Shamy "walk of shame" to not include it at least a bit.**


	19. The North Pole Paradigm

**Happy Friday, everyone! My stressful week is over so I was able to add 950 words to what was originally going to be part of a chapter and made it a chapter all on it's own. Hope you like it!**

**And oh, yeah, that business with not owning it? Still don't. Not even Gilda's surname or the baby's name.**

"Just got off Skype with the astronauts," Howard said, grinning. "It looks like everything is right on schedule!"

"Awesome," Bernadette said, putting the grocery bag down on the table and removing the contents.

"Ooh, what's that?" Howard asked.

"Ingredients," Bernadette said in her best _what do they look like_ voice.

"Yeah," Howard nodded, walking around the table and giving his wife a kiss on the cheek. "I can see that. What are they for?"

"Gilda had her baby this morning," Bernadette said. "So I'm making a cake. Leonard and Penny are going over there later to see her and bring her her board…"

"Of course."

"…so I thought I'd send this over with them."

"Nice," Howard said. "So the astronauts said that they're happy to have me up there with them because I'm so tiny I won't take up too much space up there."

"Oh, cool," Bernadette said, trying to sound enthusiastic.

Howard hesitated. "Is something wrong?"

"No," Bernadette said. "Of course not. Silly," she added, kissing him on the cheek and smiling.

"Is this about me going to space?" Howard asked quietly after a long moment of silence.

"Howard," Bernadette said, walking over to the oven and turning it on. "It's always going to be about you going to space. At least until you're back home again."

Howard looked confused and even a little hurt. "I thought you were going to support me," he said.

"Howard," Bernadette said, sighing. "I am going to support you. I'm not asking you to stay. I just wish you weren't going because I'm selfish. But it's your dream. I'm not going to deny my husband this dream…" she almost added _since I'm already denying you fatherhood_ but decided that wasn't the best comment to make at the time – or any time, for that matter. She pulled a chair out from the table and sat down on it. "I'm just still coming to terms with the fact that I'm going to be alone."

"Hey, I'm going to miss you, too," Howard said. "But I'll be back. Do you remember us talking about that NSF trip the guys and I took to the North Pole?"

"I remember Penny telling me about it."

"Well," Howard said, dropping down into the chair beside her and taking her hands, "Leonard and Penny weren't together at that time, but it was really hard for both of them to accept that they were going to spend the summer apart from one another. Penny didn't want him to go, but she didn't tell him that because she knew he really wanted to. And it was hard for her, I'm sure."

"What are you saying?" Bernadette asked, pulling her hands away, "that she's better than me because she didn't tell him?"

"I'm _getting_ to my point," Howard said.

Bernadette frowned, then let him take her hands back. "Okay. Sorry."

"I don't know exactly how Penny handled it. But I was with Leonard and I know he missed her a whole lot. He didn't mope on the couch all day, every day, but out of the blue he'd say 'I wonder what Penny's doing right now,' or 'I hear there was an earthquake by us, I hope Penny's okay.' No mention of any of the other people we knew in Pasadena. Just of her."

"I remember that earthquake," Bernadette said. "It was in the San Francisco Bay area, wasn't it? It wasn't even that bad."

"No, it wasn't," Howard said. "But when you love someone, that's what happens. A three point five becomes a seven. A category one becomes Katrina two point oh. Especially when you're not with the person."

"This still isn't making me feel better," Bernadette told him.

"Look," Howard said. "Penny made a sacrifice. If she'd told him she wanted to be with him, he might have stayed. But he might have still gone; that was a once in a lifetime opportunity. As it was, they spent the summer apart. They missed each other." Bernadette dropped her head, and Howard tilted his to see her face. "But he came back. He gave her the snowflake he preserved. And they got together and got to be with each other all the time without having to keep in the back of their minds that Leonard never got to go on that expedition." He squeezed her hands. "I know you're going to miss me. I'm going to miss _you_. But when I'm home, I promise I'll stay right here with you for the rest of my life. Okay?"

She looked up at him, giving off a slightly crooked smile that he couldn't remember seeing before. "Okay."

He dared to smile. "So...are we still good."

She tilted her head the other way, smiling. "Yeah. We're good."

* * *

><p>"Hey, it's Leonard and Penny!"<p>

"How are you so cheerful?" Penny asked as she and Leonard entered Gilda's hospital room. "You just had a baby." She put the cake Bernadette sent on the table next to the bed. "From the Wolowitzs."

"Aw, that's sweet," Gilda said. "I'll be sure to let them hold the baby."

"Do we get to hold the baby?" Leonard asked. "Because we aren't really cooks or bakers, but we do have your board."

"Yeah," Gilda said, reaching out and taking her board from Leonard. "Thanks for bringing it down, I'll need something to do until they let me out of here."

"You don't get to go home today?" Penny asked.

Gilda shrugged. "There were some minor complications. Nothing too serious, of course, would I be this chipper otherwise?"

"I actually have no idea," Penny said, glancing at Leonard, who attempted to conceal his smirk.

"Of course I wouldn't be," Gilda said. "Not if something happened to my little Iris. Turns out she had the cord wrapped around her neck, but it wasn't interfering with her wind pipe enough to cause any major damage; the doctor corrected it very quickly."

"It's a girl?" Leonard asked, only really registering the first part of the sentence. Penny jabbed him with her elbow and motioned with her head to the huge pink banner proclaiming just that above Gilda's bed. "Oh," he said. "I thought they were talking about Gilda, but I guess that wouldn't make sense."

"Well technically, as I am female, that would make sense," Gilda said, beginning to write on the board. "And believe me, these hospital people definitely would deserve the title of Captain Obvious. They're all 'your baby's coming' and I'm like 'wow, really'?" She glared at a nurse who had just walked past her door. Like her, I actually said "No shit, Sherlock!" to her a couple of times.

Penny snickered. She was really starting to like this woman.

"But," Gilda said, "if they felt like they had to inform the general public that I am female, I would have taken offense and not allowed the banner to go up, so yes, Leonard, while the information on the aforementioned banner does apply to me, it is in fact referring to Iris."

"And you _didn't_ get along with Sheldon Cooper?" Penny asked, crossing her arms.

Gilda looked up, albeit briefly, from her board. "Nope!"

"So?" Penny said, walking over to the cradle on the other side of the bed. "Is this little Iris?" Her voice jumped an octave into baby talk, and Leonard smiled. "Here's the baby! Hi!" she said, waving at the little human wrapped in pink. "Aw, she's precious!" Penny exclaimed. Leonard knew she knew she was sounding very stereotypical, but he also knew that she really didn't care. She had babies on the brain. "Can I hold her?"

"Of course," Gilda said. "She just nursed, so she might be tired."

"Oh," Penny said. "I probably shouldn't bother her."

"If she's not asleep yet, go ahead," Gilda said. "It's just important not to wake them up." She smiled at Leonard. "I'm making a graph on how many contractions I had for each stage of labor."

Leonard shifted uncomfortably. "Ah." He looked over at Penny again, now holding baby Iris and smiling as she talked to the newborn in the same voice. And he smiled.

**Further explanation of my disclaimer, Gilda's baby is named after the actress who played Gilda in the unaired Pilot. Please review! The next chapter will be up on Sunday.**


	20. Here We Go Again

**New chapter time! Sorry it's coming so late in the day, I was up until 2:30 last night and I had-well, have-a lot of math to get done today. _ But here you go, chapter twenty! Thank you so much to everyone who is reviewing, I think this may be my most reviewed story now! :)**

**Oh yeah, and as much as it pains me to continue to admit it, I don't own anything.**

Leonard rolled over to the other side of the bed, still half asleep, and then realized that he shouldn't have been able to move over so easily. Opening his eyes, he found himself in bed alone. "Penny?"

"In here."

Leonard threw the covers off and rubbed his eyes, fumbling with his other hand for his glasses. He adjusted them on the bridge of his nose and walked to the bathroom door.

Penny was kneeling in front of the toilet, her hair drawn back in a messy ponytail, hands on her knees and breathing heavily. "S'up?"

"Are you getting the flu?" he asked, putting a hand on the door frame.

She shrugged. "I didn't eat anything out of the norm, so it can't be that. Unless you want to tell me about a restaurant switch that you couldn't admit when we were with Sheldon."

"No, nothing like that," Leonard said. "Are you dizzy?"

"Remember my reaction to watching that hover car race thingy on _Star Wars_ the first time? And how I got nauseous from the animation? Well, it's like that. Only with actual vomiting instead of gagging."

"I'm going to forgive you for not remembering 'pod race' because that was in one of the newer movies," Leonard said. "So it's not food poisoning…could it be morning sickness?"

"This early?" Penny said. "I wasn't pregnant three weeks ago."

Leonard shrugged. "Isn't this the part of your life where you hear 'every woman is different' more than pretty much any other time?" He walked over to her and put a hand on her back. "I doubt not a single woman in the course of history has ever not had it so early on."

Penny looked up at him. "I don't know why I didn't think of that."

"Well," Leonard said, "I am the smart one."

"And I'm the hot one," she reminded him.

Leonard feigned hurt, then raised an eyebrow. "Yes, nauseated females, they just really get me going."

"Who do you think you're fooling?" Penny said, rolling her eyes, "I always get you going. Now grab me a pregnancy test from that cabinet. She leaned back to see what he was doing. "That's a travel toothbrush container. That's a tampon. _That_ one," she said, pointing. Leonard removed the object and handed it to her. She raised her eyebrow at him.

Leonard was confused. "That's not it?"

"Oh, this is it," Penny said. "But I refuse to pee on it in front of you."

"Oh, right," Leonard said. He backed out of the bathroom. "Um…good luck?"

She raised an eyebrow and gave a quick nod. "Thanks. I guess."

Leonard closed the bathroom door and sat on the bed. He crossed one of his legs over the other, then reversed legs, then planted both feet on the ground, then leaned forward and rested his lower arms on his upper legs, clasping his hands together.

Penny reappeared after a minute or so, the test in her hand, and sat down next to Leonard, cuddling close to him. He put his arm around her and squeezed. "This could be it."

She smiled, wiping her mouth. "Yeah, could be." She smiled and tipped her head up to kiss him. "Could be."

"Well, hey," Leonard said, using his free hand to grab hers. "No matter what, I love you."

"Yeah," she said. "Love you too." She smiled. "But I'd still prefer it to be positive."

"Well," Leonard said. "Of course." He smiled back at her. "Another minute or so left?" She nodded, closing her hand around the display. "God, I'm so nervous!" She laid her head on Leonard's shoulder. "And why did I not think that nausea could be morning sickness? I mean, how stupid am I? Don't answer that." Leonard smirked, and they sat in silence for a few seconds. "Okay," Penny said. "I'm going to look at it now."

"Okay."

She slowly slid her hand away from the display…and covered it back up again before anything could register. "You look at it," she said, turning the test over and handing it to Leonard. "I'm too scared."

"Me?" Leonard took the test and shifted his weight uncomfortably.

"Yes, look at it! Please?"

He turned the test over, read it, and sighed. "Not this time," he said, showing her the display. She looked at it without any emotion registering on her face. "Okay," she said, shrugging. "Okay." She slapped her knees lightly. "That's fine." She sighed and leaned back until she was lying down. Leonard shifted his position until he was lying on his side, facing her. "You okay?"

"Well," she said, putting her hands on her stomach, "now I want to know why I was feeling sick."

Leonard leaned over and kissed her cheek. "We'll keep trying. We have all the time in the world."

She turned her head to face him. "I know. I just figured you and I would get it right the first time. I mean, with this baby thing. Like once we decided that we wanted to, it would just…happen. I never expected us to fail twice."

Leonard took one of her hands and circled his thumb on her skin. He wanted to make her feel better, but he was just as disappointed as she was, and he couldn't find the right words to say.

* * *

><p><em>Knock knock knock <em>"Amy?"

_Knock knock knock _"Amy?"

_Knock knock knock _"Amy?"

Amy looked up to see her boyfriend standing in the open door, a wooden box in his hand. "It's always the same old knock with you," she commented. "Have you ever considered switching it up?"

Sheldon hesitated, then raised his fist to the door frame again.

_Knock _"Amy, Amy, Amy?"

_Knock _"Amy, Amy, Amy?"

_Knock _"Amy, Amy, Amy?" He looked at her. "How was that?"

Amy nodded. "Better! Now," she said, sliding the tray with the brain on it away from her, "what are you doing here?"

"Well," Sheldon said, "I know that Ricky is currently wrapped in a towel in your freezer because apparently you can't bear to part with him, although to be honest I doubt that he would want his body frozen like the Donner or Scott parties in the Rocky Mountains or South Pole, respectively." He put the box down in front of her. "I ordered this off of the internet, now it's not a traditional coffin despite the similarities of other primates to human beings, but I thought you might appreciate laying Ricky to rest in a respectable way, and not in a way that suggests that you are going to consume him at your next social gathering."

Amy blinked. "Sheldon," she said. "That's so thoughtful of you!" She took the cover off the box and peered inside. "This must have cost you..." she trailed off, not wanting to use the cliched 'a fortune' but not thinking of a better way to put it. "You didn't have to do this."

"I know," Sheldon said. "But you're my girlfriend. And you were upset. And I've recently learned that I do have the capability to feel empathy if the mind of the individual hurting or happy is worth feeling the empathy for. And after this much time, my mind has apparently concluded that you are an individual worth sharing emotions with."

Amy bit her lip, looking from the box up at Sheldon and feeling different than she'd ever had before, knowing instantly what this new emotion was. "I love you," she blurted before she could stop herself.

Sheldon looked surprised for the briefest instant, and then his expression changed and he shrugged. "Of course you do. You're my girlfriend."

Amy raised an eyebrow, and then cocked her head, feeling a little bit shy. "So do you love me?"

"Of course," Sheldon said. "You're my girlfriend."

Amy loved that it was just that simple. She rose and put her arms around Sheldon, and he returned the hug, still not enthusiastically, but with less of a feeling of obligation that he had those times before.

**Hope you guys liked it! The Shamy conversation was based off of a discussion with the lovely ladies over at Fanforum, so partial credit to them!**


	21. Perhaps Love

**Sorry this chapter got up so late guys, I had totally forgotten today was a posting day! :S But here you go, things are starting to get rolling here.**

**Oh yeah, and nothing has changed on the ownership front.**

Bernadette busied herself in her work as the first of two dates circled in red on her calendar came closer. The first, only two weeks away now, was the date Howard and Raj left for training in Texas. The second, still not visible on the current page, was when they left for good.

Well, maybe not for good, of course not for good, just for another country and then what Bernadette considered to be another world. She'd have so little time with him in between training and the actual launch; he and Raj wanted to stay in Texas for most of the interim to keep a good rapport with the astronauts.

Bernadette turned up the pages to the circle that dated the time she would watch him walk down an airport hallway and possibly leave her life forever. She wasn't stupid. People died in space. And Howard and Raj were amateurs. She felt like the wife of someone in the armed forces, ready to send her husband off into the unknown. She knew she was supposed to be strong and just let him follow his dream, but when she was a little girl, a teen, a young woman, she never expected to be forced to let go like this. She looked at the crucifix on the wall under their clock, which she had a feeling that Howard allowed her to put there in the hope of killing his mother. She hadn't expected him to leave Old Lady Wolowitz any other way. But he had.

_A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. Since they are no longer two but one, let no one separate them, for God has joined them together._

That verse had been in her mind for months now. She and Howard were married, joined together, and she knew he completed her in ways that she couldn't possibly have completed herself.

_Let no one separate them_.

Bernadette fingered the cross that laid on her chest. Stupid, stupid space programs separating her and Howard. If space travel had been possible when the Bible was written…Hell, if she'd been _around_ when it was written, she'd have made sure that it would have been _law_ that Howard could not leave because yes, she was selfish like that. She had confessed as much to her mother the previous day.

"You're not selfish for having these feelings," her mother had told her. "You're human for feeling them. You're self_less_ for letting him go anyway."

It didn't matter how many times people told her that. She was still so damn conflicted. And every day it was harder and harder for her to not cling to him and beg that he not go.

She was sure she'd be fine when he left for Texas. She wasn't sure how she'd handle being left alone knowing he wasn't even on the planet anymore.

"I know you'll miss him," Mrs. Rostenkowski had said gently. "But letting him go will just prove to him how much you care for him. And for the record, had you been around when that book was written, you would have made certain that Howie could go. Because deep down you understand, and I can tell by the way you look at him that you love him enough to let him do this. Bernie, do you remember that song about love that came out a few years before you were born, that we used to play?"

She did. And she knew exactly what line her mother wanted her to think about.

_Some say love is holding on, and some say letting go. And some say love is everything, and some say they don't know._

She had always thought it was holding on. But maybe it _was_ letting go. And wouldn't that make it everything? Of course it was everything. But how could one hold on and let go at the same time?

Bernadette kissed her mother goodbye and headed back to her and Howard's apartment, firmly with those who said they didn't know.

* * *

><p>The next test was negative. Then the one after that. With each one, Leonard noticed a change in Penny. She wasn't the happy person she once was, and more often than not responded "sure, whatever" when he suggested they get out and do something together. At first, he'd attributed her depression to missing Raj and Howard, now in their second week in texas, and with the extra stress of keeping Sheldon happy now that his circle of friends had been temporarily broken. At first she seemed to be focusing her attentions on keeping Bernadette's mind occupied with happier thoughts than her husband being states away, but once Bernadette threw herself into work, leaving Penny with no other 'project' to work on, she had more time to think about her own problem. Leonard took her to the shooting range and he took her out to dinner almost every night, cuddling her at night even when the room was stifling hot and watching as many of the movies featuring Jennifer Aniston as Penny wanted. But as much attention as she and Amy were still trying to give to Bernadette, it was getting harder and harder to keep <em>her<em> happy; her thoughts were full of the child that her womb was not.

He had come out of the shower one morning to find her gone. She wasn't anywhere in the apartment or the laundry room. He thought about calling her, but figured that he didn't need to come over as a clingy fiancé who obsessed about her every move. She may have gone to The Cheesecake Factory to keep Bernadette company during the slow hours, but even had she not, Penny was allowed to have time to herself. Leonard used Penny's blow dryer on his hair just because he could and settled onto the couch with the newest Flash.

"Hey," she said a relatively short time later, entering the apartment and pulling her iPod headphones out of her ears. She was carrying a grocery bag. "How was your shower?"

Leonard cocked his head in confusion. "_How was your shower?_ What kind of question is that?"

"Excuse me for talking," she snapped, putting the bag down on the counter.

"What's the matter with you?" Leonard asked cautiously.

"I felt sick this morning, so I took another test. Same result. Same old, same old." Leonard wasn't sure how to respond to this without Penny directing her anger toward him – she had only taken a test ten days prior – but he felt better when she came over and sank into the seat next to him. At least she wasn't going to hole up somewhere. "This is never, ever going to happen. Nope." She wasn't looking at him, and from the way that she was talking with her hands, Leonard could see that she was upset and trying to hide it.

"Yes it will," he offered.

"You know," Penny said, her voice losing the angry tinge and beginning to come back down to normal, "I really thought once we were ready, it would be easy."

Leonard could tell by the way she slumped forward that she was ready to be touched. He edged a bit closer and laid a hand on her shoulder blade. "It's fine, Penny. Sometimes it takes time."

She scoffed, looking at him for the first time. "That's what I said about our first night."

"That worked out, didn't it?" He smiled at her. "Consider this practice."

"The protection was the practice, Leonard." She looked away. "This is never going to happen."

"Why are you so negative?" He asked. "Some couples it takes a while. We can't control it, but if we have to wait, we have to wait. Don't beat yourself up." He leaned forward and cocked his head to see her face better. "Tell you what. I'll go get a fertility test. Maybe there's something wrong, and it's easy for men to get tested." Penny shrugged. "Hey," Leonard said, "at the very least we'd be eliminating a possible reason, well a couple possible reasons, maybe, as to why this isn't happening for us."

Her left shoulder was slightly lower than her right, and she looked up and over at him through the strands of hair falling down over her shoulders without lifting her head to see him better. Her fingers curled gently into their natural, relaxed position, and she shifted her feet ever so slightly. She was ready to be held, and Leonard slid his arm the rest of the way around her, his left hand crossing over to cover her hands where they rested in her lap. "Do you want to go for a walk?"

She sighed. "Sure. Whatever."

**Apologies to any readers who may be uncomfortable with me addressing Bernadette's religion. I know it's never been the focus of the show, but she does wear that necklace and I feel that a girl who went to Catholic school would turn there for comfort in a situation like this, even if it's not shown to be a huge part of her every day life as it is when it comes to Mrs. Cooper, for example. Also, the song is "Perhaps Love" sung as a duet by Placido Domingo and John Denver.**

**And just as another warning, the ball's rolling now and it's going to lead to the angst. Anyone sensitive to pregnancy related health problems may not want to continue.**


	22. Keeping Company

**New chapter! I had to type the first half of this up twice because Word crashed - very strange - but here you go! I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep posting every other day, it's going to depend on what the next few days bring.**

**I still don't own anything.**

Gilda was quite amused by the Snugli. Like science, it offered her so many possibilities. She could strap it on so Iris was on her back like a koala or opossum. She could strap it on in the front with Iris looking out toward the world, or she could put the baby in the Snugli with her facing Gilda's chest. There were probably other ways, too, but today was not the day for Gilda to work this out on her board. Today was the day for Gilda to go be a friend to someone she really didn't know that well.

Her phone buzzed, and she tapped the 'read' button. _Flight set, back Monday._ She smiled. Her husband had been in Denver for three days on a work related trip, and he hadn't been sure if he'd be back Monday or Tuesday. She was relieved it was Monday; Iris was a lot to handle on her own, even short term. But she really didn't mind, Iris was a quiet baby and Gilda liked working out problems on her board or writing corrections in scienctific journals and knowing that there was someone near her, even a sleepy little eight pound someone who couldn't converse with her about whether to use an integral or a differential to solve for the area under a curve. It didn't matter. She loved the baby anyway.

But today was not a day to worry about integrals. It was not a day to worry about differentials. Gilda attached the Snugli to her body, settled Iris in, facing the front, and refocused on the actual mission. "Are we ready, Iris?" she asked, bouncing slightly to make the baby laugh. She stretched her neck down to kiss her daughter's head and headed out of the house, locking the door behind her and beginning the thirty minute walk to the Rostenkowski - Wolowitz apartment, bouncing Iris now and again to keep her in a good mood. She knew that babies made people smile, and she was a little extra grateful to be a new mother at the moment; it'd be much easier to break the ice despite the fact that the microbiologist and Gilda shared a fascination for deadly viruses.

* * *

><p>Bernadette looked confused for a moment upon opening her door, then she pasted on a smile in greeting. "Oh, hello...Gilda. Iris."<p>

"Hi!" Gilda said brightly, smiling. "May we come in?"

"Um..." Bernadette shifted her weight, looking at Iris. "Sure. Come on in."

Gilda entered the apartment, located the living room, and sat down on the couch, unfastening the Snugli and holding Iris normally. "So...how've you been?"

"I'm good," Bernadette said. "Not working today..." she trailed off.

"You miss Howard?" Gilda asked.

Bernadette frowned. "Of course I miss Howard, what kind of question is that?"

"I was just coming over here to keep you company, you know, since my husband is out of town, too." Gilda said. "It was my way of starting the conversation. And I brought the baby to keep us company!"

"Oh. Nice." Bernadette shifted again when Gilda handed her the little girl. "Oh, well...hi," she offered, looking down at Iris. She sighed and looked up at Gilda. "Look, I appreciate what you're trying to do here, but...I don't like children much."

Gilda blinked. "Oh." She shifted her weight. "Well. This is awkward, um..." she tapped her knees. "I didn't know."

"No, how could you?" Bernadette said. "We hardly ever speak."

Gilda seemed to take that to mean she had overstayed her welcome, and she suddenly felt the urge to work this out; she shifted her weight and looked around. "Do you have a white board?"

Bernadette frowned again. "No, I don't."

"Okay..." Gilda got up. "I'll leave. But may I use your bathroom first?"

"Sure," Bernadette said, tight - lipped. "It's down the hall."

"Thanks." Gilda got up and hurried away, seeming embarassed.

Bernadette wondered if she should feel bad. She appreciated an almost complete stranger coming over to make her feel better, but she dropped by completely unannounced, and with this little baby. If she was more than an almost complete stranger, Gilda would know about Bernadette's dislike of kids. They were loud, they were messy, and they put wear and tear on a woman's body and then you had to take time off to spend with them.

And of course she now held one of those wretched things on her lap.

Bernadette looked down at Iris, who was looking up at her with her big eyes, and managed a smile. "Hi, kid," she said. "Iris." At least this baby wasn't wailing and she seemed to be clean at the moment. "Are you looking at me because you expect me to talk to you? You don't talk back."

Iris stared at her.

Bernadette adjusted the position of the baby on her laugh, jostling Iris slightly, and was surprised when the infant started giggling. "Is that funny?" she asked, bumping the baby gently again. Iris giggled some more. "Well, you're easily amused," she said, not so much amused herself. It was a good thing, she supposed, that Iris found the slightest things funny; her mother was alone in that house and couldn't go out without taking her baby with her. No matter what, Iris was always there. A moody and ever present baby would be even worse.

"Okay," Gilda said, "sorry about that." She came over and picked up Iris, kissing her forehead. "I didn't mean to intrude, I'll be going."

Bernadette cocked her head. "No, I was just about to have lunch, do you want to stay? I may have overreacted and stuff, this is just...it's kinda sensitive for me." She shrugged. "I appreciate you coming over, and it's not like you could leave her at home, anyway."

"True," Gilda said. "I'd love to stay, but I don't want to be 'terribly annoying' like Sheldon says. Personally, I really feel he's one to talk."

Bernadette grinned. "Tell me about it." She led Gilda toward the kitchen, glad she'd offered to let her stay. The woman's heart was in the right place, and she did on some level know what Bernadette was going through. Both of them were without their husbands at the present moment, even though Bernadette didn't think she was being unrealistic when she had the thoughts that she still had it way worse than Gilda did.

Because Bernadette's husband was coming home briefly to depart again on a dangerous trip to space. And as much as Bernadette hated admitting it, even to herself, she was a little bit jealous that when Gilda's husband left, she wasn't totally alone.

**I know that some of the space stuff that happens on the show could contradict some of what I'm going to write. But I had this idea two years ago before it ever came on the show, so I'm not going to abandon what I had in mind. Just bear with me. :)**

**I really appreciate those of you who take the time to write out reviews!**


	23. Still Way Better

**So my Word is still acting up, so sorry for the late chapter (it's Sunday for some of you, still Saturday for some. The next one WILL be up Monday, no worries!) but it's been a real pain to type in Word right now. _**

**So yeah, disclaimer stuff, blah blah blah...enjoy!**

"I'm so excited," Amy said. "I've never been mini golfing with girlfriends before!"

"Really?" Bernadette asked, adjusting her glasses. "Never?"

"I went with the cub scouts," Amy said, "back before they found out I was a girl. It was a lot of fun but none of us were very good."

"Well," Penny said, "we're not very good either, so I can't say it'll be much of an improvement."

"Oh, it's a huge improvement," Amy said, grinning. "We're adults, going out for a day on the green..." she looked around and sighed. "But Penny, come on, you're not pregnant yet, you can show a little skin!"

Bernadette raised her eyebrows at Penny, who sighed. She was getting used to Amy's comments, but they still caught her slightly off guard when they came up. "Amy," she said, sighing again, "showing skin is for single ladies. We are not single, and therefore not ready to mingle. Ergo," she added, feeling proud for using a word she first heard from Sheldon and Leonard, "we need to cover ourselves up."

"I don't think those shorts are necessarily covering yourself up," Bernadette said to Penny.

"Did you say something, Miss I - Asked - For - A - Child - Sized - Golf - Club?" Penny asked, raising her eyebrow.

Bernadette simmered. "Let's just play."

"So Bernadette," Amy asked as she lined up for the first hole, "I hear Gilda paid you a visit a few days ago."

"Yeah," Bernadette said. "She wanted to keep me company on my day off."

"Aw, well, that was nice of her," Penny said. "Maybe we should have invited her along today."

"No, her husband's back now," Bernadette said. "She's spending time with him. Plus she went out yesterday with someone for lunch, so it's family time today."

"How do you know that?" Penny asked, watching as Amy hit par on the hole and punched the air. "Was she hanging out with you, or something?"

Bernadette shifted her weight. "She's odd, but just really genuine, you know? Kinda like Amy. Although Amy thinks you are the solution to all things, and Gilda has that sort of relationship with her board."

"Shut up," Penny said, lining up and connecting her golf club with the ball. It flew straight down the green, bounced off the back, and went into the hole.

"Whoo hoo, Bestie!" Amy said, running up to give Penny a high five. Penny returned it enthusiastically. "See, girls?" she said. "That is how it's done!"

"Oh, just watch this," Bernadette said, adjusting her positioning near the golf ball, lining up her club, and swinging. The ball bounced down the green and connected with the hold, rattling as it went down and came to a stop. "See that?" she asked, practically skipping down to retrieve it, "I don't need a ricochet!"

"Showoff," Amy said, grinning at Penny.

* * *

><p>"Oh, look at that," Amy said pointing to the par display at hole ten. "Who just got par on a three stroke hole?"<p>

"You!" Penny said, pointing at the neurobiologist, grinning, and deciding not to mention that Amy was four strokes behind her and nine behind the almost scarily accurate Bernadette.

"Child's play," Bernadette said, leaning on the child's golf club and smiling.

"How are you so good at this?" Penny asked. "You and your new best friend Gilda haven't been coming here, have you?"

"No," Bernadette said, "but after Howard and I broke up, I was so angry at him for cheating on me with that troll I used to come here and pretend that the golf ball was his head. Or his balls. Whatever I wanted to beat senseless more at the time."

"Sounds like someone has anger management issues," Amy suggested.

"Wouldn't you be angry if Sheldon cheated on you?" Penny asked.

Amy burst out laughing. "Sheldon, cheat on me? Oh, Bestie, how much you have to learn about relationships." Penny raised an eyebrow. "Not all relationships," Amy said, "you're like a relationship goddess. But Sheldon would never cheat on me. First of all, he is, I believe the phrase is 'whipped'. If we fight, he comes into my lab and flat out offers to clean beakers. And second of all, he's not exactly the one to go looking for sex because the other one is refusing to put out."

"So what," Penny asked, "you're cheating on Sheldon?"

"Of course not," Amy said. "But if he wanted it, he could get it right here. He wouldn't need to go looking for other beakers to wash, if you know what I mean."

"I'm not sure your metaphor makes sense," Bernadette said, "but I think we get it, right, Penny?"

"Oh, we get it," Penny said, picking up her ball and club. "So Bernadette, you Skyped Howard last night?"

"Yep!" she said. "He said he thinks he's going to come home for a longer time in between the training and actually going up in the shuttle, instead of just a few days like he'd originally planned."

"That's great!" Penny said. "Compromising, very adult of him."

"Yeah," Bernadette said, "it's not because he actually wants to spend time with me or anything, he's just 'compromising'."

"That's not what I meant," Penny said.

"No, it's what you meant, you just didn't think about how else it could sound," Bernadette said.

"You know what?" Penny asked, opening her mouth to continue when Amy jumped in.

The neurobiologist gave Penny and Bernadette stern looks. "Seriously? We're fighting now? Aren't we supposed to be 'the girls'?" She sighed. "I never had girl friends in high school but I know popular girls weren't just happy go lucky gossipers. They cheated on their boyfriends with their friends' boyfriends. They bullied and they had these catty fights over things. I thought getting girl friends as an adult would eliminate all the immaturity." She shook her head and looked at Penny. "You know I can't stay mad at you for long, but right now I'm in one of those windows of time where I can. Can we just get back to playing and play this ridiculous game of who said what and who meant what and what who meant to mean what and who took what as what?"

Bernadette and Penny exchanged glances. "What?

Amy thought back over her previous sentence. "I think I reached the point where I confused everyone."

Penny nodded, slightly amused. "Maybe a little bit."

"So," Amy said, grinning like a little kid. "Can we get back to the game?"

Penny and Bernadette smiled. "Sure thing," Bernadette said. "But you know, if you wanted to, we could quit early and go get that ice cream we talked about in the car."

"Nuh-uh!" Penny said. "You just want to quit while you're ahead."

Bernadette shrugged, putting on a playful competitive face. "I'm going to be ahead no matter when we quit. It's just a matter of by how much."

"Oh, challenge is so accepted," Penny said. "I'm better the second half anyway." She tapped her club on the ground. "It just takes me a while to get warmed up."

Amy watched the two blondes banter, so similar to dynamics friends had on television, halting an argument, moving past it, and going on with their lives while playfully bouncing conversation off each other. Penny pretended to swat Bernadette's head and the microbiologist playfully ducked, feigning anger. She was way behind the both of them; even Penny had little chance of catching Bernadette with the lead the fiery little blonde had. But with these two girls, she could be not good at something and simply not care. She could fail and they still liked her. Even if they wanted to get into stupid fights sometimes, they were still way better than any of the girls she wished she'd had for friends in high school.

**I figured this was a time in the fic that needed to relate very little (or so it may appear now) with any of the main plots. Some stuff in here will connect to later chapters, but for now just take it as the girls hanging out outside of Penny's apartment or a bar, which after knowing each other as long as they have, my bet is they do. :)**


	24. Sharing Is Good

__**Yes, this chapter was short. BUT this section was originally 234 words so I am proud of myself. :P (Appreciating the little things and all!)**

**Still own nothing, still wish I own everything. You all know how it goes by now.**

_Knock knock knock_ "Leonard and Penny?"

_Knock knock knock_ "Leonard and Penny?"

_Knock knock knock_ "Leonard and Penny?"

"Come in!" Penny called. She and Leonard were on the couch, watching the second Indiana Jones movie. Leonard reached out to pause it as Sheldon entered the room.

"Oh, that's a good movie," Sheldon said approvingly.

"You didn't come over here to tell us that," Penny said.

"No, I came over here to tell you that I received a call from Wolowitz." Sheldon watched for Leonard and Penny's reaction, and appeared disappointed when it was only mild curiosity. "They're coming home."

Penny jumped up, flinging the blanket that covered her and Leonard's laps aside. "Really? When?"

"Tomorrow morning." Sheldon said, with as much of a smile as he could genuinely produce over such an event evident on his face.

"How long can they stay?" Penny asked. "I saw on the news that the shuttle is going up in a month."

"He didn't say," Sheldon said. "I assumed all would be discussed tomorrow."

"Of course you did," she said, sitting back down next to Leonard. "I'm excited to see them!" she said, grinning.

"Me too," he said. "What time is their flight in?"

"Three o' clock," Sheldon said.

"Okay." Leonard nodded.

"P.M."

"Pacific Coast Time?" Penny chimed in with a smile.

Sheldon looked confused. "What other time zone would be relevant?"

Penny let her eyes shift to Leonard, and then back to the theoretical physicist. "Never mind, just go...do something."

"If I didn't already have a thoroughly planned out schedule for my day," Sheldon said, "I'd ask you to be more specific. But I won't." He nodded to them. "Good day."

Leonard cocked his head as Sheldon left. "He never says good day unless he's hiding something."

"Eh, don't worry about it," Penny said, trying to get him to sit back as he had been.

"Aren't you the one always telling me to pay more attention to Sheldon?" Leonard asked her, raising an eyebrow.

"Not in every single possible instance," Penny said, pushing her nose against his cheek. "You'd never spend time with me, then! And if you don't spend any time with me, there's no possible way that we can get pregnant."

"True," Leonard said, "unless it's Ryan Gosling's baby, or something."

"Well, he or she'd be taller," Penny joked.

"That's true of pretty much anyone but Howard," Leonard said, "and we know that's out of the question, because he's married to Bernadette and all."

"Yeah, yep," Penny said. "That's the only reason, for sure."

"Guess I'm lucky he snagged her," Leonard said, "or you'd be having three foot tall babies with an engineer."

"No children are born three feet tall, genius," Penny said, "and..." she trailed off. "I had a second part to that, but I forgot it, so let's just watch the movie."

"Leonard?"

"Hmmm?"

Penny shifted her weight and looked at him. "Did you tell your parents that we're trying to have a baby?"

Leonard shook his head. "Not...not in so many words. Or any words."

She raised an eyebrow. "I know you're not ashamed of me."

"No," he said kissing her temple, "of course I'm not ashamed of you."

"So you're not telling her because you're ashamed of yourself?"

"You didn't tell your dad," Leonard said. "You said we're going to wait until there's a baby to tell them about. And being perfectly honest, we should wait until the second trimester, because that's when it's much more likely that nothing will go wrong, as opposed to the first where a lot of stuff can..."

She slapped his stomach lightly to get him to shut up. "I mean once I am pregnant. You going to hide it from your mom?"

"Not hiding it, per se," Leonard said. "If she asks, I'll bring it up. Though she'd be much more interested in Sheldon getting someone pregnant than me." He sat up. "We could _tell_ her that it's Sheldons!"

Penny stared at him for a few seconds. "Okay, a couple things wrong with that," she said, holding up her hand to count on her fingers. "One, I'm not dating Sheldon. Two, I wouldn't sleep with him in a billion years. Three, he wouldn't sleep with me in a billion years. Four, I'm fairly certain that your mother would disapprove of Sheldon wasting his offspring on someone without a doctorate." Her jaw dropped, "oh my God, your mother would totally want Sheldon to get Amy pregnant!"

"_No_!" Leonard said putting his hands up to his face.

"You don't think so?" Penny asked.

"No, no," Leonard said, dropping his hands but keeping his eyes shut. "I was just...I was picturing it."

Penny wrinkled her nose. "Now I am too." She swatted him again. "Thanks for the image."

"Well, you know me," Leonard said, "I like to share. Sharing is caring..." He shrugged. "And as hard as it may be, it's the foundation for developing the skills that are needed to succeed in life."

Penny cocked her head. "I don't know what parenting book you got that from, but it sounds like those cheesy movies that little kids watch so I'm gathering from this conversation that you're going to be a good dad."

Leonard looked proud of himself. "I've been reading a lot of books," he told her. "I started with some pregnancy ones, well, conception ones, and you know that weird thing you keep wanting to do? The books say it does not increase the chances of getting pregnant. So an even firmer 'no' from me." Penny raised an eyebrow good naturedly. "Also," Leonard continued, "I skimmed some pregnancy books and now I'm into the preschool years. I'm no neurobiologist, but I guess being interested in the developing brain is just in my blood, you know?"

"Or are you saying that to have something to talk about with your mother once you tell her we're having a baby?" Penny asked knowingly.

"Moreso that," Leonard admitted. "But still, you should read some of them, they're really interesting."

"I do," Penny said. "Whenever I'm frustrated over the fact that it's been months and nothing, I flip to the part about childbirth and it makes me feel a little better."

Leonard patted her leg. "How about we just go one thing at a time?"

"Oh, I agree," Penny said. "Hence, what I said earlier..." she took the remote from Leonard and hit play. "Let's just watch the movie."

**Hopefully this will help get a sense of how time is passing. (Oh, and I don't know how many of you read press releases, but no matter what happens on the show, I am not backing out of any of these storylines. If someone major contradicts what I'm writing, then the fic just becomes a bit more AU than I had originally expected.)**

**But hey, I can roll with it!**


	25. Lauren and Phineas

**Again-so sorry I keep cutting it close on update dates. Friday's update _will_ be done Friday morning/early afternoon Eastern Time, but I don't know if I'll be able to get one up Sunday; I'm going out of state for a horse show this weekend and we're leaving Friday afternoon and coming back late Sunday night-_late_ Sunday night. So if for some reason this isn't updated until Monday, that is why, and I apologize.**

**Still don't own anything. And apologies if anyone named Lauren is reading this and is uncomfortable. :D**

"Okay now," Howard said as the flight attendant's voice came over the P.A. system, announcing the plane's descent into the California airport. "We only have a month before we go up again; we have to really try to not talk about how awesome that was in front of Bernadette, okay?"

"Why not?" Raj said. "If you pretend you didn't like it, wouldn't that hurt her more that you still picked it over her?"

"Okay," Howard said, "Look, she knows that I made a commitment, and I'm going to honor it. I think that's an admirable trait. And I'm honoring our relationship too, notice I did absolutely nothing about Lauren?"

"Ah," Raj said, smiling and tipping his head back. "Ah, Lauren. So blessed in the chest area."

Howard smiled. "Yeah..." he snapped back into the present and coughed. "The point is, I did nothing. And I could have done something, believe me."

"Oh, right," Raj said. "She was totally checking me out, and you know it."

Howard let out an exasperated sigh. "She was not, she specifically told me that she enjoyed talking with me, ergo, she could not have had any interest in you."

"Well at least I'm capable of doing something about it even if she did," Raj said. "Bernadette's boobs have nothing on Lauren's."

"Maybe not," Howard said, "but I love her and I'm married to her and when we tell stories of our trip Lauren is as flat as Sheldon, understand?"

"Oh, capisce," Raj said, nodding agreeably. "Just like 'the trip was fun, the training good, but not the best experience of our lives because that will hurt Bernadette's feelings', yes?"

Howard smiled, tapping the arm rest between them. "Now you're getting it. I love her a lot more than space; I don't want her thinking for an instant that this is more important than her."

Raj nodded. "Got it."

* * *

><p>"I always get so confused in airports," Sheldon said. "There's so many people, so many places to go, it's chaotic, they sell terrible food, and then you have to go up in a plane instead of getting to enjoy a lovely train ride."<p>

"You've never ridden in a plane before?" Amy asked him.

"Don't be silly," Sheldon said. "How else could I be a visiting professor in Europe? Take a boat? So inefficient. But planes scare me."

"You know planes are the safest form of transportation, right?" Amy asked. "Safer than cars and trains."

Bernadette, feeling the need to contribute something to the conversation, looked over at Sheldon. "Yeah."

Sheldon shifted his weight and then twitched. "Well...trains have never let me down before. I've gotten sick on a plane."

"Gotta love how he ignores the facts when they don't work well for his argument," Amy said to Bernadette.

"Well," the microbiologist said, "I can appreciate literature, and a lot of authors draw from personal experience, which is what Sheldon is doing, so techincally..." she trailed off. "Screw it, that's not fun." She put her hands on her hips and tried to give her voice attitude-which she'd been told she was quite good at-"yeah, Dr. Cooper, what's up with that?"

Sheldon lifted his chin. "Mock me all you want," he said, looking away, "but the only person who should have a real aversion to the rail road is Phineas Gage. 'I've Been Workin' on the Railroad' would _not_ be a happy song for him!"

"Bernie!"

Bernadette jumped at the voice, and her face lit up as she saw the two men coming toward them. "Howard!" she exclaimed throwing her arms around him. Her face changed suddenly and she leaned back. "Wait, what are you doing?"

Howard looked embarrassed. "I was trying to pick you up and spin you around, but I guess that didn't work out so well, did it?"

"Gravity works here," she said, leaning over to kiss him.

"If I may," Sheldon interjected.

"Here we go," Amy muttered.

"Gravity not working implies that gravity is broken. On the moon, there is gravity, or else everyone who tried to land there would simply float away. Gravity simply has less effect on the moon. It still 'works'."

Howard, Raj, Bernadette, and Amy fell silent and looked over at the theoretical physicist. Then Amy smiled. "I looove you," she said in a singsong voice.

Sheldon lowered his head. "I'm taking that as my cue to shut up."

"You trained him well," Howard said, giving Amy a respectful salute, which Raj awkwardly mimicked.

"So guys," Bernadette said, looking excited. "How was training? Amazing, sucky, what?"

"You know," Howard said, nodding. "It was good. Raj and I, we feel really prepared now, and that should give everyone peace of mind about the shuttle."

"Absolutely," Bernadette said. "Of course my top priority is your safety." She squeezed his arm and looked at Raj. "So Raj! What did you think of the training phase?"

Raj looked panicked, putting a hand to his chest if that would enable him to speak. The group watched in silence as he tried to formulate sounds and words. "Oh, grow up and talk to them!" Howard snapped.

"Lauren is as flat as Sheldon and nothing on that trip could even begin to compare to the love that you and Howard share," Raj blurted. Looking panicked, he ran off toward the bathroom.

**Aaand here's where I probably move away from canon, with this chapter. Oh well. :D**

**Sorry this got up so late! Please review!**


	26. Better Than Empty All The Time

**Making up for posting so late with posting in the first hour of the day! If I do get a chapter up this coming Sunday, it will be very late and maybe even Monday morning. I apologize in advance, but when you don't have internet, you don't have internet.**

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything. And if I did, I can assure you this kind of angst would not be on the actual show. But hey, fanfic is the place, right? :D**

"I'm worried about her," Leonard said a few days later as he and Raj sat in the lunchroom. "She's dejected. She tries to hide it, and she tells me she's fine, but every few days she'll just break down."

"Is the sex still good?" Howard asked.

Leonard glared at him, and then he looked back down at his food, poking the meat with his fork.

"I knew it!" Howard said to Raj, and the two smirked.

"I'd try to explain to you," Leonard said, "but it's different when you're trying to have a kid. I've...we keep having to do it at a certain, planned out time, because while you technically can get pregnant at any time, but she's got these..." he trailed off and tried to help his purpose by gesticulating, "ovulation...tests...and...guys, seriously," he said when they choked. "It's not that bad! It's just different, that's all. I still love her, of course, we still..._enjoy_ our time together, it's just...scheduled." Leonard shrugged. Lately, sex had seemed more like a chore, more like Step One in Project Parenthood, than anything else. But for the most part, his words about enjoying being with her were true – just not so much currently. Now it felt like something they were required to do at a certain time.

"How is Penny handling it?" Raj asked.

Leonard sighed, looking down at his food. Penny was scaring him; her mood swings were sudden; one moment she was happy, and life was good. The next moment she'd be so frustrated with their inability to conceive that he'd hide her keys so she couldn't take it out on the road. Then she'd hit a wave of sadness, like the previous night when he'd come home to find her standing by the window.

He'd come up behind her, not even sure if she knew he was there, and when he was a few paces away she'd turned to look at him. Her eyes were wet with tears. She held a sixth negative pregnancy test in her shaking hand. Six months of trying, six months of failing. Six months of unrecognized hopes.

"Oh, Penny," he'd said quietly, disappointed but not knowing how to react. He didn't want to show it because he didn't want Penny to take is discontentment as a personal failure. However, he didn't want her to think that she was in it alone and he didn't want a family with her just as much as she wanted to have one with him. And when he looked at her that night, her eyes had crushed him more than just the simple fact of knowing that she wasn't pregnant, because dear God, she was taking this hard.

She'd looked in his eyes, shaking her head ever so slowly. Then she'd looked away. "Hold me."

He'd had his arms around her in an instant, one hand stroking her hair. She'd twisted around and buried her head into his shoulder, not crying, but instead sighing deeply and clutching the back of his jacket in both her hands. He'd felt her shake just a little, still not crying but more of a shudder; he didn't know if it was relief that finally he was home and she wasn't alone, or if somehow someone could shudder in sorrow. Either way, she was hurting, hurting badly, and he didn't like it, and as he had tightened his arms around her he had felt almost like there was less of her there with him.

Those were the times that scared him the most. When he saw her and realized that he didn't have to worry about how she'd react to being caught in that frame of mind because she was too broken and too frustrated and too upset to blame anyone. When he thought of the saying "you only live once" and wondered why she had to live a life with disappointments like this. And why someone with a doctorate couldn't help her.

"I wouldn't worry about it, Leonard," Raj said. "At least you've found the woman of your dreams. I'm still a pathetic bachelor who can't even speak to anyone of that sex."

Leonard tried to figure out how to explain it to Raj. "Raj…when you find the woman of your dreams, you'll realize that along with her comes an inability to not worry about her."

Raj was silent a moment, looking down at his food as if this had never occurred to him before. "Maybe I'm better off the way I am."

Leonard was about to tell him no, nothing was better than being in love, and then he caught himself, finding himself rethinking that opinion. Maybe it was better to not get attached, to never have to be consumed with such worry and never have to come home and feel the sadness radiating through the room like their laser had shot through space on its way to the moon.

And then he realized that his original thought was right. Maybe being in love with Penny made him worry, and maybe their inability to get pregnant so far had brought sadness and frustration to both of their lives. He was sure it had. But he wanted to keep experiencing that. He wanted to care about someone so much that he felt all of this stuff he was feeling day after day.

Maybe love sometimes filled you up with the sadness, but it was certainly better than being empty all the time.

**Hope you liked it! This was one of the first bits I wrote, so it had to be edited a LOT between January of '10 and now! :D Sorry it's kinda short, but I wanted to make sure you guys didn't go without a new chapter until Monday!**


	27. On The Same Page

**Sorry I couldn't update last night, we got home at midnight and I was exhausted. So here is an early morning, long chapter for you!**

**And I still don't own anything.**

"Howard and Bernadette were going to see that new romantic comedy, and they wanted to know if we would come with us," Leonard said, scanning Penny's face for her reaction.

Penny scoffed. "Yeah, the last thing I want to do is go watch some spirited humorous movie about two people who meet and fall in love and against all odds just have their perfect little lives together. That'll make me feel better!" She clapped her hands. "Great idea, Leonard Hofstadter!"

Leonard cocked his head, trying not to get angry. He'd noticed the instant he'd come home by Penny's body language that she was not having the best day, but he wasn't used to not being able to cheer her up eventually, and he'd been trying for hours now. "So instead you want to stay here and brood?"

Penny looked at him as if she'd never seen him before in her life. "No! Jesus!" She turned abruptly and headed into the kitchen area.

Leonard smirked. "Hey, have you ever wondered if the people who are in the Islamic faith say 'Muhammad!' when frustrated? I'd bet people wouldn't like it when those who did did, just like Mrs. Cooper would probably chastise you for saying 'Jesus' just then."

Penny whirled around again. "_What_?" She hissed.

Leonard hunched his shoulders slightly and then dropped them back down. "Penny, why are you doing this? Why are you acting like this?"

"_Why_…am I doing…_what?_" Penny snapped. "Why am I tired? Why am I _frustrated_? Why do I feel as if nothing I ever do is good enough for _any_body?"

"Sweetie…"

"No!" She said, holding up a hand in warning. "Don't 'sweetie' me. Just don't. I am so…sick…"

"Of me?" Leonard asked. "You're sick of me?"

"I don't know!" Penny said, throwing her hands up. "Maybe! Maybe not! I don't know what the hell is going on anymore. We're fighting…these past few days, it feels constant. We haven't had sex in a week and a half and yet we're still hoping to get pregnant! I'm no PhD, genius, but even I can see the flaw in that plan!" She dropped onto one of the barstools. "Maybe we were wrong. Maybe this isn't right."

"Okay," Leonard said, taking a breath to calm himself down. They'd had maybe one other fight, the day Bernadette and Sheldon and Amy went to get Howard and Raj from the airport. They were far from fighting all the time. But he wasn't going to try and reason that particular fact with Volatile Penny. Volatile Penny was never fun. He moved over and sat on the other stool. "Why don't we just talk, okay? Calm us down."

"I don't want to!" Penny's face was red, and she glared at him with something in her eye that Leonard had never seen before. "I can't."

"Penny," he said, grabbing her hands. "Just talk to me. God, just…just talk to me." He looked at her red face, with circles under the eyes and angry tears in the corners of them, and let out a deep breath. "Please," he said. "If we don't communicate this is all going to…" He stopped for a second to swallow. "This is all going to go bad."

Her face took on an expression that he hadn't seen in years. "Leonard?" she asked in a small voice, "are we worth saving?"

His eyes searched hers desperately, feeling himself go pale and weak. "What do you mean?"

"We haven't had two fights in three days in years. We can't get pregnant, and as the last thing I want to do is go to that movie...and I didn't want to go out to eat with you last night either...we don't like spending time together anymore…" she trailed off. "Do we?"

"Oh God," Leonard said, aware of how dangerously weak his voice sounded. "Penny, you come here." He pulled her over to the couch and she sat down. He dropped down next to her. "Look," he said, grabbing her hands again. "We fight. Everyone fights. Some have problems starting a family, but – look at me – we _work_. Okay?" He let go of one of her hands to brush her hair back behind her ear. He thought she looked adorable with her hair dropping forward near her face, but he felt the need to touch her some more, so remind her that just because she was frustrated and angry at the present moment it didn't change how they felt about each other. "We work," he repeated. "And I know you're frustrated and I am too but..." he shrugged. "But Albert Einstein was working on projects until he died. He never gave up on them. And look how great he was. We can bet the Albert Einstein of couples."

"Albert Einstein never accomplished everything he wanted to," Penny said.

"No," Leonard said, "but when is anyone ever done working on a relationship?"

Penny had that look on her face, the look that Leonard could never read. All he knew was sometimes, when she got that look, she was about to burst into angry tears. Sometimes, that look turned into a yell. Sometimes she would just make a frustrated sound and stomp away from him.

But sometimes she did what she did now. Her face changed and tears leaked out of her eyes. As if on autopilot, Leonard curled his arms around her as she melted against him. "I know," she sobbed, her body shaking. "I know we do!"

Leonard was surprised at her change in tone. _Bipolar disorder,_ Sheldon or Amy would diagnose. "Honey?" He stroked her hair. "Honey, it's okay."

She sighed, letting her breath out into his shoulder. "Thank you," she whispered.

"For what?"

"For being such a great guy, and for not deserting me…with all that's happened."

Leonard drew away from her in surprise. "Deserting…what's happened?"

"The whole baby thing. How we can't get pregnant, and we might not ever be able to. And we don't know why."

He cocked his head ever so slightly. "You thought I'd _leave_ you because of that?"

She was ashamed to admit it, but her eyes closed and she looked at the floor. "I read a novel once where a woman said that you're only given something good if, soon, something good was going to be taken from you. I thought you'd hold it against me, blame me, and…" her voice cracked and she had to stop.

"Hey," Leonard said, standing up. "That hurts, Penny, that you think I'd take off because we may not be able to have children. We haven't even gotten fertility tests yet." He put his hands on his hips.

"Leonard..."

"No," Leonard said, holding out a hand. "Stop."

She looked up at him, now the one looking desperate and afraid. "Oh God, just say something."

"Okay," he said, nodding quickly. "Okay." He let out a loud sigh. "I don't understand why you constantly have these 'he's going to leave me' thoughts. Why every time we have a fight or every time something not perfect happens you always act so grateful that I'm staying with you. I_ love_ you. And I know no one is perfect, but sometimes it just bothers me that it appears that you are constantly thinking I'm going to leave you. That's not healthy, Penny. For you or for our relationship, and to be perfectly honest I really thought we were past that."

"I was thinking irrationally," she said, managing to keep her tears under control. "I was scared. I never had a rational argument for the fear. I'm just so used to seeing the glass half empty. You know that I do that!"

Leonard dropped back down onto the couch. "If a child isn't meant to be - and we've been trying less than a year so it's way too early to jump to that conclusion - then it's just you and I forever, and seriously, how bad can that be?"

She smiled. "Not bad at all. In fact, that sounds…but are you sure that's what _you_ want? With me, you may never have children, and I know you want a family as much as I do…and I just want you to know that if you want children…I understand. I want you to be happy." She knew how much she ached for a child, and she had no doubt that Leonard felt exactly the same. What if a family really was more important to him than she was?

He looked hurt all over again. "You're _still_ doubting me? After all of this?" He slid his hands from the bottom of her ribcage to her hips, and back again. "I want a family. But I want it to be you. _You_ make me happy." He kissed her forehead, and then held her gaze. "Honestly, I can't even believe we're having this conversation right now. We're beating the dead horse; I just told you that I wouldn't leave you. What the Hell do I have to do to prove that and _why_ the Hell do I have to? You were the one who left me and I haven't once throughout this been afraid." He stood up again. He knew he had made his point before, and had a feeling that he should just let it go, but he was too hurt to be able to shrug her comments off that easily. "I just…I guess I don't understand. Why would me leaving you even cross your mind?"

"Because you are _too…damn…good for me, Leonard_!" she shouted, standing up herself. "And I am still afraid. No, terrified. I love you so much." Her voice cracked again.

_Bipolar disorder,_ Sheldon or Amy would insist.

"And you know I love you, too," Leonard said. "But…I just don't understand why you're so insecure about this. Is…" he looked away. "Is it because we're not married?"

Penny looked away too, shaking her head. "We decided that we didn't need to get married."

Leonard knew that, of course he did, and she knew he knew it, but she said it anyway, and it made him close his eyes painfully. "I didn't tell you that we didn't need to because I wasn't sure I wanted to, you know that, right?"

"I know." They had decided, as they both knew so well by now, that it was financially better for them to have children first, "but…I don't know, maybe I'm hormonal or something. I just get paranoid, you know how I am."

"I know," he said, coming up and giving her a peck on the forehead. "But I won't leave you, okay? I promise."

"I know," Penny said. "Because you're committed."

"Because I love you too damn much."

Penny nodded, looking down, and them back up. She sighed, looking down again, then back up at Leonard, then down, as if unable to break the pattern. "But...still, what's happening to us?" She asked.

"What do you mean?" He asked her, taking a tiny step back. _Just when I think we're making progress in this conversation._

"I mean this. We don't have fun together anymore. I don't ever want to go anywhere, I'm always tired, and I just feel bad all the time, no matter what I'm doing or where I am." She looked at him. "And yes, being with you makes me feel better, but…just not great. And I love you. But…is the spark gone? That's what I'm concerned about. I don't doubt your love and I really, really hope you don't still doubt mine. But are we _really_ meant for the long haul? Or are we going to end up one of those couples that don't hate each other but are pretty much staying married for the kids?"

He sighed, putting a hand on hers. "You're stressed. I'm stressed. That explains the fatigue, and the lack of ambition. And I read..." He bend down and moved some things around on the coffee table until he found one of the books, "that it's normal for sex to start feeling like work or a chore when we have to schedule it. And couples get through it fine; we're not an extreme case."

She looked up at him with wet eyes. "But what about the spark?" Her voice was quiet, airy. "What about the Cat?"

_You're worried about the spark? Okay, I'll show you it's not gone. You want spontaneous? _Leonard looked into her eyes. "Come with me," he said, taking her hand and leading her toward the apartment door. Halfway there, he spun around, grabbed her by the upper arms, and put his mouth on hers, seemingly spontaneous, taking her off guard.

She was caught by surprise. He felt her knees buckle and one of his arms moved instantly to her back to support her as she slid her arms around his neck. When they broke apart, she kept her eyes closed, taking in a deep breath, seeming, if possible, even more dazed then she had the first time they opened the box.

Her eyes opened wide, and she gave a small little nod. "Wow. Okay…" She got her legs underneath her and put her hands on his chest. "We're okay."

He smiled at her. "I know."

She looked up at him. "Can we maybe go in my room and just…just cuddle for a little bit? Howard and Bernadette will understand."

He smiled at her. "Sure."

They entered her room and Leonard shut the door, drawing the shades by the window so the room was fairly dark. Still holding hands, they went to her bed and got under the covers. Leonard lay on his side, and Penny crawled in next to him. She shifted farther down in the bed than he was so she could put her forehead against his chest. He put his arms around her. "How's this, Love Bug?" he asked her, trying to make his voice as tender as possible.

He heard her soft sigh. "Better." He kissed the top of her head, feeling her fingers curl around the front of his T-shirt. "A lot better."

"Good." He pulled her closer. "No more freaking out, okay? This is us."

"Mmm," Penny said, closing her eyes. "I like us."

"Maybe we should do this more often," he whispered. "Just come in here and be together. No going anywhere, no doing anything. Just us."

"I'd like that," she whispered. The area of Leonard's chest that her face was against was warm from her breath. As he continued stroking her hair, he realized how convenient it was that his heart was in that spot, too. He tugged her closer, resting his nose in her hair and wondering what that shampoo was. And he let himself smile. They needed that conversation, both of them. Now they both knew that they were still on the same page.

**I know we've had several chapters without Gilda now; she will be back, no worries! :) And this we're-not-getting-anywhere-with-this-conversation talk Leonard and Penny had in this chapter is the lead in to the more angsty parts of the fic, so again, you've been warned!**

**I have a couple of fics to beta this afternoon, so unsure if I'll be getting back on my old schedule by posting tomorrow and then continuing with every other day from that point forward, or if I'll wait to Wednesday to post again and then start every other day. We'll see. :)**


	28. Rosie the Riveter

**Okay, decided to post two days in a row so I can get back on my usual schedule of every other day. The next update **_**will**_** be Thursday, I promise you! I'm not going anywhere for a while now. :)**

**Oh yeah...still own nothing. Not even Gilda, gosh, that's depressing. But anyhoo...**

"So what does this mean?" Bernadette asked, taking a sip of her coffee.

"I don't know," Penny said. "I mean last night felt really, really good. We got all our frustrations out, we had one of those heart to hearts…" she closed her eyes momentarily. "We had an _amazing_ kiss, and we curled up together and fell asleep. And that felt really good, which makes me wonder…" she looked over at her friend, "do we really want to have kids? I mean, once that happens, there won't be any more _us_. There won't be him coming home and me…you know, jumping on him at the door."

"I thought that scared him," Bernadette said.

"Well it did. But he got over it. But with a kid, we won't be able to just spend time together alone, we'll always be worrying about what the kid is doing, and if the kid is going to, you know, walk in on us having sex…do we want that yet?"

Bernadette was taken by surprise at how intensely Penny was staring at her from across the table. "I don't know," she said slowly, not moving a muscle as she eyed her friend. "I'm not Leonard."

Penny rolled her eyes. "I know. I know. Can I just get some advice?"

"Am I really the right person to ask?" Bernadette asked. "I don't want kids."

"I know that, but you know us," Penny said. "And I think you're more reliable than Amy when it comes to this sort of thing."

"Well," Bernadette said, shifting her weight in the booth. "There is the whole getting older thing, and…" she shrugged. "You guys were in limbo for too long, you know, with getting back together, and just getting things right, and if you wait on this…will it ever happen? It's so rare that you two know what you want and want the same things at the same time."

"Yeah," Penny said, "you're right. But…"

"No buts," Bernadette told her. "You guys already decided to do this, if you keep hemming and hawing over it Leonard's going to get angry."

"See," Penny said, "I don't know if he would. He's been really great to me, like, amazing, and…"

"He's thinking you completely, one hundred percent want to get pregnant and he feels bad because you've been hurting over the fact that it hasn't happened yet. He's the kind of guy that when you're unsure, he obsesses over what being unsure means, doesn't he?"

Penny had to concede that point. She nodded. "So he'd probably rather have me tell him I do or don't want to keep trying then me coming to him all unsure." She tapped her fingers. "Still, I want to talk to him about this…"

"I'm not saying you can't," Bernadette said quickly, "I'm just saying if he eventually gets a little irritated, you gotta understand that."

Penny put her head on the table. "When did you get so wise?"

"When Howard left," she said simply. "I had to."

Penny raised her head. "Do you think I'm, like, trying to say we don't need to have kids right now because-"

"Because it's not happening?" Bernadette finished. "Quite honestly, yes, because you were all Rosie the Riveter on the subject when this all started."

"I know…" she traced a dried watermark on the table with her finger. "I'm so used to failing, you'd think I'd be good at this." She offered Bernadette a halfhearted smile. "Sorry you have to listen to my depressing life woes."

Bernadette looked over Penny's shoulder. "Well, you and I are both about to get a not so healthy dose of cheer."

"What?" Penny looked over her shoulder. "Gilda!"

"Hey guys," she said, sounding very excited. "Scootch." She slid in next to Bernadette and smiled. "So, how's everyone?"

"Where's Iris?" Bernadette asked.

"With her grandma. She got a new book last weekend, uh, what do you call it, 'Stu the Cockatoo at the Zoo' or something…"

"Oh God," Penny said under her breath.

"And my mother – in – law decided to take her to the zoo today, she's been laughing a lot recently at animals on television so the zoo will be a lot of fun for her." Gilda grinned. "Isn't a baby laughing one of the most adorable things you've ever seen?"

"Did you work that out on your board?" Penny asked, her face perfectly straight. Bernadette put a hand to her mouth to prevent the laughter.

"No," Gilda said. "Actual field work, which I must say, is incredibly interesting." She smiled at Penny. "So we haven't talked in a while!"

Penny nodded slowly. "Nope. Glad to hear Iris is doing well, though!"

"Thank you," Gilda said. "So when does she get a playmate?"

Penny groaned inwardly. She really didn't want to talk about that with Gilda. "As soon as the timing is right, I guess."

Gilda reached over and gave Penny's hands a firm pat. "Well, look on the bright side, you aren't woken up at night all the time because your kid wants something."

Penny smirked, thinking of all the times Sheldon had woken them up. "Yeah…that'll be different."

"Hey," Gilda said. "Don't stress over it. My husband and I had a plan, if we couldn't get pregnant in our first months of trying, we'd research reasons why people have problems. We'd get fertility tested. We'd explore all our options. There are things you guys can do aside from having sex all the time."

Penny nodded. "True…true."

"Of course," Gilda added, "we got pregnant almost right away. But it's good to have a plan if something doesn't go the way you want it to. You can even write it all out on a board, if you like!" Bernadette put her hand to her mouth again.

Penny nodded. "Excuse me," she said, standing up and sliding out of the booth.

"Where are you going?" Bernadette asked.

"Home. Leonard's off today." She grinned. "We're going to go all Rosie the Riveter on his board!"

"Atta girl!" Gilda said proudly. "When in doubt, go to the board."

When Penny left, Bernadette sighed. "What's the matter?" Gilda asked.

Bernadette shrugged. "I just really hope it happens for them," she said. "And I hope it not happening so far doesn't mean anything's wrong."

"Nothing will be wrong," Gilda said confidently. "The CERN supercollider wasn't built in a day."

**Sorry this is so very much shorter than the last one! Thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far, **_**especially**_** those of you who put detail into them. This is my first fic to be over 200 reviews, so thank you all!**


	29. You Overreact, and I Overthink

**Sorry this chapter is up so late at night again, guys, college is a slave driver!**

**We're starting to get into one of the angsty parts, so…just consider yourselves warned. I know some might be bothered, but it may be a sensitive issue for others, so…yes, you've been warned.**

**And I still don't own anything.**

"Hang on," Leonard said, trying to get Penny's point straight. "You talked to Gilda and she suggested we systematically narrow down to reasons why we might be having problems getting pregnant?"

"Yeah!" Penny said. "Come on, we can't have sex every day, this would at least be a way for us to feel like we're doing something, you know?"

"Yeah," Leonard said, smiling. "Especially since we're not getting any younger; it may be a while yet before this actually happens, so figuring this stuff out…" he nodded. "It's good. It's very good."

"We've already been trying almost a full year," she said quietly. "You don't have some sort of scientific solution worked out already? Fail, Leonard Hofstadter. Fail."

Her question was meant as a joke, but the way that Leonard cocked his head made her realize he was taking it seriously. "I'm kidding."

"No, no," he said, looking excited. "That's an idea!" He jumped up and moved toward the table by the window, grabbing her laptop and bringing it back to the couch.

"No," Penny said slowly. "We can do my idea of figuring out what could be stopping this from happening. That is an idea. Wanting a formula for it is me mocking you. That is not an idea."

"I know, I'm just choosing to ignore your mocking because we have work to do," Leonard said. "We'll search reasons why we might be having difficulty, and then narrow down the possibilities to what's going wrong! Then we can make sure it's fixed! And technically, it was Gilda's idea, not yours. Self-admitted, there."

Penny grinned, feeling enthusiastic. "Okay!" She grabbed her college ruled notebook, turned past the first few pages of scribbled physics notes, and began writing the words that Leonard read aloud from the computer.

"Penny," Leonard said. "You don't need to write down 'okay, I'm going to do a Google search'."

Penny looked down at the notebook. "Oh. Right." She turned the writing utensil upside down and attempted to erase, but the eraser was dry and cracked and it left an orange streak across the page. "Son of a bitch!"

"Penny," Leonard said. "Go get my board."

"Ugh, you sound like Gilda," Penny said, smirking and running across the hall. Luckly, Sheldon and Amy were so immersed in counter factuals they didn't stop to question why she was taking the board. Amy didn't even seem to notice she entered the room, and _that_ got Penny's attention. She stopped and smiled at them for a moment, holding the board and feeling proud, for some reason, that they seemed so very immersed in each other. A question Amy posed snapped Penny out of it, and she smirked before turning and bouncing back across the hall. "I got it!" she said proudly as she re – entered her apartment, deciding not to mention that Gilda had suggested as much to her earlier.

"What took you so long?" Leonard asked. "I've read a full article already!"

"Well, I had to find out where the Large Hadron Collider would be located had Queen Jane Seymour not died shortly after the birth of Prince Edward the sixth."

"And?" Leonard asked.

"Belarus. What did you find out?"

"You know I actually kinda think that one makes sense," Leonard said, thinking.

Penny clapped her hands. "Leonard!"

"Sorry." He cleared his throat. "It looks like the first thing that we need to do is get the basic fertility test." She looked at him. "You did that a week ago. Did they ever call back?"

Leonard cocked his head. "I'm…unsure."

Penny moved over to her home phone. "Dammit!" She picked up the receiver. "How long has this been disconnected?"

Leonard frowned. "_That's_ the number you gave them? Has anyone actually ever called that number?"

Penny glared, looking as if she was going to defend herself, but decided it wasn't worth the effort explaining that her parents still used their home phone all the time and it made her feel like someone ready to be a parent and that made her feel good. "Shut up." She replaced the phone and came back over to the couch. "I'll go over there tomorrow."

"Sounds good," Leonard said, putting a hand on her knee. "So…" he started to type into the search bar.

"Wait," Penny said, "let's not do this right now." She saw the look on his face and realized she'd better explain herself. "Let's wait and see if we can narrow this down before we go listing all these issues that we could be having. Let's start out able to eliminate stuff."

He nodded. "Okay."

"Okay," Penny said, running her fingers through her hair nervously. "Ugh. My hair is gross."

"Tell you what," Leonard said, "I'll go down and talk to the fertility people, you go and take a shower."

Penny thought for a moment, then nodded and jumped up. "I'm down with that!"

* * *

><p>"Okay," Penny said, coming out of the shower as Leonard smiled at her from the couch, envelope in hand. "They didn't talk to you there?"<p>

"I had no appointment. They told me to call if I had any questions." He patted the seat beside him. "Let's take a look."

Penny sat down next to him and leaned over, putting her hands on his shoulders. He tore the end off of the envelope and fished the papers out, unfolding them. His eyes, along with Penny's, darted back and forth over the lines. "Well," Penny said cheerfully, "looks like there's nothing wrong with you, Dr. Stud."

"No…" Leonard said, shaking his head. "Doesn't appear to be."

"Terrific," she said, leaning against the back of the couch. "So I'm the problem."

"Not necessarily."

"Um…yes necessarily."

"No, that's not what it means. Here, I'll look everything over again," Leonard said, taking the result sheet from Penny.

"What for?" She asked, letting him take it and looking away. "It's very clear. You're as fertile as the ground in Narnia." Shaking her head, she looked down at her feet. "It's me." She looked up at Leonard. "It's _me_. It's my fault I'm not pregnant."

"This doesn't mean it's your fault," Leonard said. "It just means it's…probably not my fault."

"Which means it's probably my fault." Penny licked her lips slowly.

"Look on the bright side," Leonard said. "There's less possible reasons why this isn't happening now. It's a matter of narrowing it down and finding it. Here. Let's research this." He eased Penny's laptop off her coffee table and booted it up. Her background, a photo of the two of them dressed as Han Solo and Princess Leia for the past Halloween, popped up on the screen. He logged onto the internet and found Google.

"Your favorite site," Penny said. "Mine, too."

It took him a second to realize what she was talking about, and then he grinned and shook his head. "We're horrible."

"I have a dirty comment," Penny said, "but I'll save it." Feeling cheerful all of a sudden – this _was _doing better than nothing – she leaned against him and rested her head on his shoulder as he searched for causes of fertility problems in females. He tapped the screen. "Any surgeries that might affect fertility?"

Penny read the lines he was pointing at, squinting. "Nope." She shifted her weight. "Is it wrong that I'm nervous?"

He smiled. "No."

"Ugh…" she said, shifting her weight again. "Good, because a little part of me is. But go on."

"Here's something. Endometriosis. It only affects about seven percent of all American women. Do you have any of those symptoms?"

"Nope."

Leonard scrolled down. "Premature menopause…"

Penny laughed. "Yeah, that's it," she said sarcastically.

"You're not overweight or underweight," Leonard continued. "You stopped drinking when we started trying…you don't smoke…" He looked at Penny in shock when she shifted uncomfortably. "You smoke?" He asked incredulously.

She threw up her hands. "Not anymore, okay? I was a…curious teenager."

"Penny, do you know what kind of damage you've probably done to yourself?" Leonard said, shaking his head and his hands.

"Leonard! It was for like, six months when I was sixteen. My father started driving me to and from school to make sure I wouldn't go anywhere, and I stopped." She shrugged. "I haven't had a cigarette in ten years."

"Fine."

Penny glanced at him, feeling uncomfortable with how angry he had become over that. "Sorry I didn't tell you," she said quietly.

"Doesn't really change anything, now does it?" He mumbled. "But whatever. After ten years you shouldn't be feeling any of the effects."

She looked at him for a long moment, her mouth hanging slightly open. "Leonard…"

He shook his head.

"Oh, _God_," she moaned, putting her head in her hands.

"Hey," he said. "Calm down. I'm not mad at you. You were a kid. I just…I don't know why I didn't consider that you did, I'm sorry." He reached for her, making her face him. "But our kid's not touching them, okay?"

Penny sighed. "Yeah. Okay. For sure. You really never tried them?"

"So not endometriosis," Leonard said loudly, scrolling down while Penny smirked and shook her head. Turning back to read the screen, she listened to her boyfriend eliminate other possible causes, and watched as he wrote down other possibilities that they couldn't eliminate without tests. "There," he said after a while. "We'll just get tested for these, and see what happens."

"Yeah," Penny said. "Let's do it." She offered her fist, and Leonard bumped it with his. He got up to get water. She leaned forward and clicked on 'next', and another page of possible causes popped up. "This seems to be the same list as before…oh, cysts. Lovely, that wasn't on the other one." She scanned the symptoms. "But I don't think that's…oh." Penny's finger froze the mouse on one of the possible problems and felt her blood run cold.

"What?" he said, looking at cocking his head. He glanced at the screen, but not before she began scrolling. "What does it say?"

"Symptoms," she said, scrolling down farther, trying to get away from that first sentence. She felt her lungs tighten and told herself she was overreacting, but what she'd read she hadn't even considered a possibility. "Symptoms…bloating, a bit…frequent urination…" she thought about it. "Um…no?" She kept reading, feeling herself begin to panic. "Nausea…" Well, she'd thought it was morning sickness, but it hadn't been so…. "Yes. Loss of appetite, yes. Painful intercourse, no. Fatigue, a little, lower back pain, yes…oh no …" Her chest began to ache, and she felt as if her lungs couldn't get enough air. "Leonard," she gasped, one hand pointing at the computer screen and the other against her stomach, trying to breathe, feeling more and more desperate when each gasp for air didn't satisfy her need for oxygen. The mystery of why conception was so hard for them suddenly seemed to have an explanation, and the realization of the possibility was causing her to panic. She was losing control of her lungs, and the stress and frustration of the past few months all came to a head as she stared at the list of symptoms, most of which she had, and feeling herself lose control. She started to shake with her struggle to take in oxygen.

Then Leonard was next to her, bringing her pointing arm down and sliding his hands up and down her sides. "Easy, easy," he repeated, sliding one hand around to the left side of her chest. She didn't need him to tell her that her heart was racing, she could feel it pulsing in like six different places. "Breathe, breathe."

"_Can't_," she gasped, her fingers pinching the fabric of his jacket hard, as if that would help open her airways. She knew she was panicking, and that was making it worse, but she couldn't help it. She could only manage to squeak the single syllable as the tiny bit of air she was able to inhale was pushed back out of her lungs. "_Can't._"

"Yes you can, focus. Inhale."

"_Help!_" She begged, knowing that he couldn't do anything more than he was already doing.

"You're okay, just focus," he repeated, shifting his weight ever so slightly. "Just focus."

Penny closed her eyes. Tried to block out what she had been reading. Tried to just let herself breathe rather than trying to. Instead of letting her fears control her, she focused on where she was-home. She focused on Leonard's arms around her. She focused on his voice. Slowly, she was able to take a deep breath, shuddering on the exhale in pure relief. She slumped backward, letting Leonard hold her, feeling tired. "Leonard."

"It's okay," he told her. "I'm here. Do you feel better?"

Her eyes felt wet, as if she was crying. Penny put a hand up to her face. No, she wasn't crying, but her eyes were watering. "What happened?"

"I think you had a panic-attack." He shifted her body over so he could see her face. "What happened? You're muttering to yourself one moment, and the next you're croaking out unintelligible syllables and shaking." He rubbed her arm. "I over think and you overreact, huh?"

"Are you seriously making a joke about that?" she said, looking half angry and half hurt.

Leonard looked confused. "What?"

Penny took a gulp of air. "That." She pointed at the screen. "Five of seven symptoms."

Leonard looked at the screen, scrolling to the top to see the name of the problem that had caused Penny to panic. She watched him read the first sentence. _"A cause of infertility in otherwise healthy females, ovarian cancer kills seventy-five percent of all women diagnosed per year."_

"Okay, now," Leonard said. "This isn't likely. You don't have all the symptoms…"

"No one does. And it says your risk is increased if you've never had a baby. That's me."

"It also says that symptoms aren't specific to the disease and you could just have them at random times. And there are dozens of symptoms for diseases like that."

"No, but look," Penny said, "Risk is also increased if you have a family member that had the disease. I think that's what my aunt died of; I was three so I don't remember. And look at this. If you're having trouble conceiving, and haven't used fertility drugs, that may increase your chances of having it."

"It doesn't mean you have it."

Penny saw Leonard's face in profile as he looked at the computer screen, and she knew he was worried. Of all the causes of fertility problems in females that they could make educated guesses about, this one, this horrifying, serious one, was the most likely, based on symptoms and past.

Penny's hands went involuntarily to the sides of her stomach, resting her palms flat. "Oh God," she whispered.

"It's going to be okay," Leonard said. "We're just looking at all the possibilities now."

She shook her head slowly. "I know that's it, Leonard. It has to be. It fits."

"It doesn't all fit," Leonard said. "There's no frequent urination, and that's a sign of pregnancy too, and sex is still fine, and so what if you're a little fatigued? People get tired." He smiled at her. "This disease is so rare."

"I know," Penny said. "But you know I'm going to be freaking out until the possibility is eliminated. Damn you, ovaries!" She was desperately trying to bring comic relief to the table…or rather, the couch; she was feeling a bit embarrassed about falling right into a panic attack from simply reading about one of the many reasons for difficult conception. But cancers were scary, and she did tend to overreact about the simplest of things.

"So call and get an appointment," Leonard said, partially to be encouraging and positive and partially because he really wanted – needed – to know as well. "I'm sure you'll get cleared in just a few days. And if by some chance you do have it, they can do surgery and you'll be fine."

"Yeah," Penny said, taking in a deep breath. "But that's providing it hasn't spread. And if I get my equipment removed we can't have kids. Not even via surrogate in this case." She put a hand on her chest. "Those panic attacks, they really take it out of you!" She declared. "Have you ever had one before?"

"Oh," Leonard laughed. "Yes."

"When we weren't sure if Luke was going to blow up the Death Star before it took out Yavin?"

Leonard gave her a playful swat on the arm. "Before our first date."

Her mouth fell open slightly. "Really?" she asked, her tone suggesting that Leonard's inability to control his nerves was the sweetest thing she'd ever heard.

He leaned over and kissed her forehead. "Yep."

"Aww," she said, putting a hand on his chest. Then the romantic look came out of her eyes. "You know my reason is a little more justified, right?"

Leonard wasn't sure to answer her with a "of course" or laugh at how abruptly she changed tone and expression. He simply put his arm around her and used his other hand to minimize the internet window before wrapping both arms around her. "And Penny?"

"Hmmm?"

"It was Yavin Four."

**I know cancer is a sensitive issue for a lot of people (as it is for me) but I hope it won't turn anyone away from the fic, there will be no humor had from the seriousness of the issue, I promise you that.**


	30. Queen of Paranoia

**New chapter! I decided to get it up early in my day for y'all since I've been getting some up so late!**

**Once again, I don't have ownership of anything. And Brit, so sorry your new OTP of Gilda/Board is not in this chapter. ;)**

"Bestie!" Amy said cheerfully as she and Bernadette entered the coffee shop.

"Hey guys," Penny said, motioning to the receipt sitting in front of her on the table top. "I ordered for both of you."

"Thanks," Bernadette said, coming over and sliding into the booth next to Penny. Amy eased into the other side. "So," the microbiologist said excitedly. "Any progress for you and Leonard?"

"Well," Penny said, "we narrowed down our conception problems just a bit."

"That's always promising," Amy said. "If you continue to need help, I have a book on positioning that you two might want to look at."

"How is it that you're a virgin and yet you have all this creepy sex stuff?" Bernadette asked.

"Please, Bernadette," Amy said. "One researches and or purchases these items out of curiosity. If I did not have a curious mind, how would I possibly have reached this level of success in the educational world? I mean, yes, my intelligence is off the charts, but curiosity never killed anyone. Aside from the unfortunate cat in the clichéd saying, but I guess anyone who has literally died of curiosity didn't have the intelligence to match it up."

"I would have either shrugged or left the room," Penny said to Bernadette.

"Me, too…" she said under her breath, raising her eyebrow slightly at Amy. "If that would have not seemed odd in this setting."

"Oh, don't pretend," Amy said quietly, folding her hands and smiling. "You both know that's part of why you love me."

"Oh!" Bernadette said suddenly. "Not to change the topic abruptly, but are we all going to the airport to say good – bye to Raj and Howard?"

"I didn't think you'd want to come," Penny joked, "but yeah, tag along."

Bernadette rolled her eyes. "I meant together, like as a send off."

"Are we throwing a surprise party?" Amy asked in a slightly louder tone of voice than they'd been using.

"No," Penny and Amy said at the same time.

"Shame. I never got to be a part of one of those," said the neurobiologist sadly.

"Howard said he didn't want a party," Penny said.

"Did that stop you from trying to throw Leonard one the first year you'd met him?"

"He just didn't know he wanted one because he'd never had one," Penny said. "And you weren't even there. And why are we whispering?"

"Eh," Bernadette said in a normal voice this time, shrugging. "So, you were saying? About the pregnancy stuff?"

"Well, we narrowed down some stuff, but so many symptoms are applicable to a lot of different problems. Leonard's still researching men's problems, but his little guys would get picked first for any sports team. I'm not a scientist, but I can read those results sheets and he is most definitely _not_ the problem."

"So what's left over?" Amy asked.

"Just stuff," Penny said. "Little stuff. And the big stuff." She stopped talking as a woman came over with their drinks. "Thank you," the women said politely to the girl, who smiled and walked away. "And right now I'm just kind of freaking out because I have a lot of symptoms for this one thing that I really hope isn't the problem."

"Which is…?" Bernadette prompted.

Penny wondered if she should tell them. Was it the right time? They didn't know anything for sure yet. Her appointment wasn't for four more days, and it would take longer to get test results back. Would Leonard be upset? Penny decided no, it was her decision to tell whom she wanted and Leonard knew that Amy and Bernadette were her best friends. "Well…I don't want to freak you guys out if it's not what it is."

"Just tell us," Bernadette said gently. "Let us worry with you."

Penny sighed, lowering her voice again and not liking admitting to this possibility in such a public place. "Cancer."

Amy blinked several times in a row, a sign that Penny had learned meant surprise. Bernadette eyebrows bent upward and her mouth came slightly open. "Are…are you _sure_ you're not just paranoid?" Bernadette asked in a small voice. She put a hand to her mouth and looked at Amy. "Was that insensitive? Oh heck, you wouldn't know." She looked at Penny. "Was that insensitive?"

"No," she said, shaking her head slowly.

"So…how sure are you? I mean, you haven't had any tests yet, have you?"

"I found a website that had the seven main symptoms. I have five of them. I may just be freaking out, it's probably nothing." She smiled. "Right? I freak out over nothing all the time."

"I wouldn't blow this off," Amy said. "Ovarian Cancer is the fifth highest cause of death in women. Granted, odds of getting it are increased as one grows older, but it's certainly not unheard of in women your age."

"Thanks, Amy," Penny said flatly as she felt Bernadette's arm come around her. "I hadn't thought of that."

"Again, another reason why you love me," Amy said, nodding.

"Oh my God," Bernadette said, shaking her head as if it had just now hit her. "And you haven't seen anyone about this yet?"

"I've got an appointment Monday," Penny said. "I'm just trying not to get too freaked out about it right now." She decided that her friends didn't need to know about the panic attack. She was embarrassed enough about that.

"That's probably smart," Bernadette said, squeezing her friend's shoulder. "I bet it's nothing. I mean, what symptoms do you have?" Penny listed them. "See? Some of those, like fatigue, are just what people get sometimes. And others are actually symptoms of pregnancy. Have you taken a test?"

"The last one was negative," Penny said. "And if we're going by those ovulation tests, I wouldn't have been able to get pregnant in the window since, and considering our luck so far, I highly doubt we've defied the norm and done so. Nothing good is growing in there right now."

Amy shifted. "You can't say 'in there'. If you have ovarian cancer, the cancer is growing in your ovaries. If you were pregnant, the baby would be growing in the oviducts or uterus, the former not being a good thing, either but it's probably not applicable in this case. So, as you can see, neither scenario would have overlapping locations of growth."

"It could if the cancer had already spread," Bernadette argued.

"Not making me feel better here," Penny said.

"Oops," Bernadette said, smiling at her friend. "Sorry. But honestly, I wouldn't worry too much."

"You know me, Bernadette," Penny said. "I worry like I should be crowned Queen of Paranoia. Leonard and I have had the same fights and discussions over and over again these past few months. We overanalyze or overdo everything…why are you smiling?" she asked Amy.

"I'm sorry," said the neurobiologist. "This is the complete wrong time, but I'm feeling quite up to date at the moment and couldn't help my facial expression."

"Huh?" Penny and Bernadette said in unintentional unison.

"Queen of Paranoia," Amy said. "Band name?" She looked at them in the silence. "Anyone?"

* * *

><p>"I just saw Sandra Bullock!" Howard said as he ran up to the rest of the group from where he had been standing a few feet away with Bernadette, pointing at a crowd of men and women who were nearly impossible to distinguish.<p>

Penny rolled her eyes. "No you didn't. She's filming out of state right now."

"Well, it looked like her," the engineer said. "And as I'm not going to be around for a while, I'm going to pretend that was her." He looked at his watch. "We board in two minutes. Are you ready, Raj?" Raj nodded, giving his friend a thumbs up. "Okay then," Howard said, losing a bit of excitement as he surveyed the group. "I guess this is good-bye for nine months."

The group was silent for a long moment, watching each other. Then Penny threw her arms around Howard. "Be safe," she said to him.

Leonard hugged Raj. "Maybe you'll find a girl astronaut." Raj thought for a moment, then grinned.

Penny let go of Howard to hug the astro-physicist. "Bye, sweetie," she said.

He smiled at her when she let him go, then bit his lip. "Bye," he managed in a high-pitched tone.

Sheldon had been standing quietly during the good-byes, but suddenly he jumped forward and hugged Raj and Howard at the same time. "Hopefully the toilet up there will be functional," he said, managing a laugh.

Howard and Raj smiled. "Oh boy, do I hope so," Howard said. He turned to Bernadette and the couple embraced. "I love you," he whispered to her.

"I love you too," she said quietly, her voice cracking. Howard shifted his position so he could kiss her, and the couple melted into each other, arms holding the other tightly with their lips still locked. A woman sitting in a wheelchair behind the group noticed their intensity and wiped her eyes. Penny looked over at Leonard and he gave her a tight smile, both of them looking back at husband and wife saying good – bye.

Howard and Bernadette parted, their eyes wet, and Bernadette swallowed. "If you die up there," she said in a choked up voice, "I'm going to kill you."

Howard looked at his wife for a long moment and then kissed her once more, both his hands on her face, before he and Raj picked up their luggage; the astro-physicist excitedly heading for the boarding tunnel. Bernadette backed up and Amy put an arm around her.

Howard started to follow Raj, stopped, and turned to look at Penny and Leonard. "Good luck…with…everything."

He didn't know about the cancer scare, but they still knew what he meant. "Thanks," Leonard said, smiling at him.

"And you know," Howard said, "adoption is always a possibility."

"We know that, Howard," Leonard said. "But thank you."

"I love you guys!" Penny called, and the men grinned.

"I have some levels of platonic affection for the both of you!" Amy yelled.

"What Amy said!" Sheldon called.

Raj began blushing, and he waved a hand at them while trying not to smile.

"Jeez, Bashful," Howard said, smirking.

Penny gave Howard a small smile, then glanced at Bernadette. She was biting her lip. Howard noticed and came back over to her; he leaned over and kissed her one more time and then all of a sudden Howard and Raj were just disappearing down the tunnel and out of site. Amy was glancing between Penny and the microbiologist, and the waitress moved over to put her arm around their friend. Bernadette let her tears go. "Howard," she whimpered, shaking. Penny wrapped her arms around the little blonde and held her tight. "It's going to be okay," she told her, but it only made Bernadette sob harder.

Amy joined the hug. "It's okay."

"He'll be back," Penny told her comfortingly. "Just remember that."

"Not if he _dies_!" Bernadette blurted. "People _die in space!"_

"Bernadette," Penny said, putting her other arm around the woman and pulling her close. "No one is going to die."

**I revised Howard and Bernadette's section while listening to "One More Day" by Diamond Rio, and while the song is not about a situation like this and might be more relevant to Leonard/Penny, I momentarily had it associated with Howard and Bernadette. (Not that anybody cares. :D Just me blabbing. )**

**Again, I love reviews! :) And thanks to everyone who has so far!**


	31. Red Flag

**Next chapter! I'm updating early on posting days now because for some reason I'm feeling really ambitious. I haven't procrastinated anything since Friday and I think that's a record for me. So since my stuff for tomorrow is done, I could work on this earlier than usual! So here you all go, chapter thirty one.**

**And that whole not owning stuff thing still applies.**

Amy rolled over and adjusted the pillow beneath her head. She hadn't been sleeping well and she wasn't sure why. She was turning off all electronic devices the appropriate time before turning in, she was eating right and walking up and down those stairs to visit her friends – _that's right, world, Amy Farrah Fowler has friends! Suck on that, Billie with the braces! _– was enough exercise if anything was. She was too tired to really begin wondering why her brain wasn't relaxing enough to let her ease into the sleep cycle, so she decided to take the easy, non – PhD way out and blame it on the now months ago loss of Ricky.

There was a dull knocking sound, and it took Amy a minute to actually realize that someone was at the door. She glanced at the clock, squinting to see without her glasses on. It was after one a.m., and she had no clue as to who would be paying her a visit this early. It wasn't Sheldon, the only person to ever drop in on her at all hours; even if he was distressed about something and needed to talk it out, he never failed to knock three times and call out her name. Or hit his bongos three times and call out her name. But she didn't hear any bongos.

Amy remembered that Penny kept a baseball bat in her kitchen and one of Leonard's light sabers in her room. Amy remembered wondering if she should have some sort of object by her side to defend herself if need be. Amy wished she had something now. She'd have to ask Sheldon.

She stopped at the threshold of her bedroom door and looked out into the apartment, taking her glasses from the dresser and putting them on. The knocking was definitely coming from the outside. Amy turned back to the dresser and grabbed a wrench from next to her hair brush – and she had no time to try and remember why she had put it there – and moved toward the door. "Who is it?" She called out quietly.

No answer.

Amy stopped about six feet from the door. Common sense told her to just look through the peep hole, but she was terrorized by that move she'd watched with Penny and Bernadette that had a guy stab women through the peep holes when they looked through it. Amy stood her ground a couple of feet from the door. "Who is it?" She called out again.

No answer.

Amy tried a different approach, raising her voice. "Speak now, or forever hold your penis!"

"What?"

Amy jumped at the response, then cocked her head. "Bernadette?" She took the two steps separating her from the door, unlocked it, and let the microbiologist in. "What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry," she said. "Can I sleep on your couch?"

"Is this more of you missing your husband?" Amy asked.

Bernadette bit her lip. "You're closer than Penny, and she's…" she sniffed. "She's…she's with hers."

Hers. Leonard.

Amy nodded, shutting the door. "Come on." Bernadette entered the apartment and Amy pushed the door shut, giving the microbiologist a hug. Bernadette sniffed. "Thanks."

"Come with me," Amy said, grabbing her friend's wrist. She and Bernadette walked into Amy's room and Amy pulled the covers off of one side. "Get in."

Bernadette cocked her head. "With you?"

Amy shrugged. "Why not? You're not used to sleeping alone, at least I'm another person. No worries, we won't spoon, I've learned that's only for couples."

"Howard and I never really did that," Bernadette said, crawling into the bed and lying on her back.

"Well good," Amy said. "You can pretend that I'm him. When you two are simply sleeping, that is."

Bernadette gave a small smile. "Sounds good to me." She was grateful that she wasn't Penny.

Amy climbed onto the bed and turned off the lamp. "In case you were wondering, I haven't slept well recently, so I'm likely to fall into a deep sleep that does not involve night terrors, ergo you won't have to endure Amy Farrah Fowler at her unconscious worst like Bestie did."

Bernadette managed a smile. "Sounds like I'm a lucky girl, then." She settled in and closed her eyes, trying not to think anymore about how Penny and Leonard were together tonight, probably as content as the fat old cat that lived next door from Howard's mother.

* * *

><p>"Oh, my God, Penny!"<p>

Leonard lifted himself up, rolled onto his side and sat up, ever so slightly. She was still on her back, panting and trying to blink the tears away from her eyes. She put a hand up to her face to press her eyes closed with her pointer and middle fingers. He moved closer and tried to put an arm around her, but she stiffened, flinched at his touch, something she had never done before even as a conscious movement. Her breath was coming quick but fairly easily, but he could hear the light, quiet pained sound at the beginning of each one that she was trying to suppress as she got herself under control. "What happened?"

"I just…it…I…" she shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut.

Leonard's heart hurt, and he focused on that to try and force down the panic. "Baby, I'm sorry."

She shook her head, trying to take steady breathes. "No, it's not your fault."

"Yes, it is." He dropped down and buried his face in the pillow in angry frustration.

"No." Leonard heard the pillow shift and knew she had turned her head toward him. "It's me. Painful intercourse. That's another symptom."

Leonard felt the blood drain from his face as he lifted it and noticed her looking at him. "Oh my God." His right hand came across her body to rest on her stomach, his thumb gently rubbing the skin it could reach, gaining confidence when it didn't cause her more pain. "Is it getting better?"

"Hold on," she said. "Hold on."

"Oh God…" Leonard shook his head, his heart twisting. "I'm sorry."

"No," she said. "You know I normally like it when you do that."

Her blunt honesty usually made him laugh, but tonight he couldn't even muster a smile. "Any better? Anything?"

"Yeah." She stayed still, a hand coming up to rest on his, staring up at the ceiling. "I'm okay." She turned to look at him. "Leonard?"

"What, sweetie?" he asked, his other hand resting on the top of her head.

"We have to move the appointment with that doctor up." She swallowed. "This could be bad."

"It's going to be fine, Lovebug," he said, leaning in and giving her a kiss on the forehead. He was intending to leave it at that, but she tipped her head up and caught his lips and was so clearly trying to make the kiss last that he adjusted his position so he could hold her head in place, deepening the kiss until he had to stop for a breath. "How is it?"

She smiled up at him. "Awesome."

"You know what I mean, the…" he let out a quick breath. "Do you feel better?"

"I'm fine now," she said. "But…I can't tonight, okay?"

Leonard gave a little laugh; the question seemed too ridiculous. "Of course it's okay! I don't want you to hurt." He scooted over. "I'll sleep right over here."

"No," she said. "Cuddle?"

"If that's not going to hurt you…"

"Dear God, Leonard," she said, laughing just a little bit. "Just hold me, okay?"

He smiled gently. "I'm fine with cuddling. Do you want your shirt?"

Penny straightened a bra strap and looked over her shoulder. The shirt was on the floor. "Nah."

He moved himself closer to her, fearing that if he pulled her to him the pain would come back. But she moved of her own accord, snuggling up to him and sighing sadly. "It's okay," he repeated, running his hand up and down her head and neck. "We'll take you in and you'll get one of those ultrasounds that check for this kind of thing. Okay?"

She smiled at him. "Okay."

"I love you, Lovebug," he said, resting his nose against her head. He was beginning to worry about her more, a lot more, but he couldn't show it. Until they actually had more to go off of, it was better just to make sure she was happy. Or content. Or at least as close to those feelings as he could get her.

"Love you, too," she whispered. She curled her fingers in his, trying to appear loving, but she couldn't enjoy their closeness like she usually did. She'd been burrowing her anxiety over her possible condition deep within her, but now that there was this…something that had never been a problem for her before and it was a symptom of the cancer. She bit her lip, looking down at the mattress but seeing nothing in her distraction. She wondered if the pain was power of suggestion; she'd read about it only days earlier and perhaps she was thinking it, instead of actually feeling it. She wasn't able to convince herself it wasn't real for even a second. She knew it was. And she remembered what she had said to Bernadette oh so recently.

_No one is going to die. _"Oh God…"

"Hey," Leonard said. "Penny. Relax. Come on."

"I can't," she said, her eyes welling up. One tear escaped, and she knew Leonard saw it. "I can't calm down."

He touched the tear with his finger. "Don't cry on me," he said, half joking. She smiled and blinked them away. "I'm kidding," he said. "You can cry."

"No," she lied, "I don't need to. I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry."

"No, honestly, it's okay. Just keep holding me."

Leonard sighed and pulled her closer. "Just try to sleep."

"I can't," she said, still forcing herself not to cry. "This is too much."

"Shhhh," Leonard said, rubbing her earlobe. "Just breathe slowly, close your eyes, count storm troopers…"

"You're such a dork," she whispered, closing her eyes and pressing her face to his chest.

"You love me for it," he whispered fondly, trying to install a sense of calm in her. He knew she was smiling in the dark.

Leonard wasn't sure exactly when Penny fell asleep, but he knew it was a long time. Even after exhaustion got the best of her, the precious sleep wouldn't come and take _him_ away. He couldn't remember ever being more awake.

Until tonight, the possibility of Penny having cancer, that horrible, terrifying illness that never meant any good news, was a possibility that he did feel concerned about. He wasn't as paranoid as Penny and he knew about odds, so it wasn't consuming him because he didn't really believe it. Not until tonight. Tonight, that same voice that told him they were ready for kids told him that fearing for her life was the right thing to do. And this time he still couldn't ignore it, although he wanted to. More than anything.

And he just hoped that he was wrong. Leonard tried to comfort himself in the fact that, as Sheldon pointed out more often then he'd like him to, he was wrong a lot.

**Thanks to everyone still reading, and to all my reviewers! If you'd like to contribute to them by clicking the clicky button below this chapter, well, I'd love that. :) Next chapter on Wednesday!**


	32. Stat

**New chapter and a happy Leap Day, readers! Here's your next chapter.**

**(insert disclaimer about not owning anything aside from the random other characters in this chapter that don't actually exist here) You all know the drill by now. :P**

The doctor's office was fairly crowded, with nearly a dozen couples milling about in the waiting room. "Most of them have already been seen," the receptionist told Leonard and Penny, "and are waiting for our program to restart so they can make follow up appointments. You shouldn't have more than fifteen minutes to wait."

"Okay, sounds good, thank you," Leonard stammered, taking Penny's arm and leading her a few steps away from the desk. "That's not too long," he said, smiling.

Penny looked down at their feet, wringing her hands. "Uh-huh," she said. "Damn, it's crowded in here!" she said, glancing around.

"Tell me about it," he said, looking around. "Do you know where the bathroom is?"

"Well, I think there's one in there," she said, gesturing to where the examination rooms were, "but I think you have to have a cup to fill up if you go in there."

"Eh, I'd only like to do that once," Leonard said jokingly, grinning at Penny. "Check!"

"That's gross," she told him, trying not to smirk herself. "And we already know how fertile you are, we don't need to revisit that little triumph."

A cheer went up from the couples around them, and the couple looked toward the desk. "The program's working," Penny said, halfheartedly punching the air. "Yay."

"It's about frickin' time," said an ornery red head slinging her brand purse over her shoulder and giving a cough. "I have places to go, you know."

"All of have us have places to be," said the male half of a Hispanic couple standing near Penny and Leonard.

"Carl, be quiet," said his wife. "She's just angry that she lost that earring."

Carl and Leonard smirked. "Hey now," Penny said, "don't blame her for that; that's serious stuff!"

Carl, his wife, and Leonard looked at her and smirked, thankfully catching on to her sarcasm. "If it had been shoes, she wouldn't have been joking," Leonard said. Glad for the comic relief, Penny smacked him playfully on the shoulder.

"Good luck to you guys," Carl's wife said, smiling at them as the couple walked toward the exit.

"Thank you," Penny said, forcing the smile as she came back to reality."

"Well, now we can sit down," Leonard said, putting his hands on her upper arms and guiding her toward the now vacant seats. "I'm going to run to the bathroom," he told her. "I'll be back before they let you in, love bug."

"Okay," she said, smiling and watching him walk away, mixed in with the couples that were also vacating the waiting room. She really didn't want him to leave, but she wasn't going to be so weak minded that she couldn't let Leonard pee. She leaned back slightly and propped her feet up on the wooden table in front of her. Within a minute, the waiting room was empty. Well, nearly empty. The red head was still complaining in a loud voice about something that Penny didn't really care to tune in to. Then there was just the middle aged brunette standing by the door to the examination room hallway.

She put her hands together and twisted, attempting to master that finger trick that Raj used to fool Sheldon. He'd shown her how to do it, fourteen billion times if once, but she never could get it. Of course she couldn't get it. She couldn't do anything right.

Penny put a hand to her face. She was not going to start crying over her inability to mimic Raj. Not here. But she never had much control of her emotions; she'd always known that.

"Hey," came a soft female voice. "Are you okay?"

Penny looked up, wondering if the brunette woman was speaking to her. It was an odd thing to wonder, as they were the only two in the room that weren't in the process of cursing out the lady at the desk. "Oh, yeah," she said, waving her hand. She didn't want to unload her semi-truck fleet of fears onto this stranger. "You know, I can't get pregnant, that's why we're all here!"

She had intended to pass it off as a joke, but the woman's face softened even more, giving Penny a kind smile. "Could you hand me that magazine behind you? I brought it with me."

"Oh." Penny reached to the seat behind her and handed the magazine to the woman, smiling through her red eyes. The woman reached for it; Penny let go too early and it fell to the floor. "I'm sorry!" Penny blurted, her voice cracking. Not only could she not do anything _right_, she couldn't even do anything _at all_.

She jumped up to get the magazine, but the woman had already bent and retrieved it. Penny stayed standing, unsure of what to do next, and the older woman took her elbow and sat her back down, settling herself next to her. "How long have you been trying?" she asked gently.

"Like a year," Penny said. She managed to go another second without having to put her hand over her face to prevent the woman from seeing her tears. "I'm sorry," she added, wiping her eyes. "It's just…" Dear God, she was about to unload on this stranger, "…it's just hard."

"Hey," she said softly. "Can I tell you a story?" Penny raised her eyes from the floor to the woman's. "I have endometriosis," she told her. "When I was diagnosed they gave me so little odds of ever having a baby of my own. Don't ever lose hope."

Penny blinked a few times. "So you're pregnant now?" she asked.

"Oh," she said, smiling and shaking her head. "No, I'm not, I had a little girl after three years of trying. I'm here with my little sister." She looked up at the sound of the door opening and a woman who was maybe a little younger than Penny exiting with a nurse. "There she is." She rose to her feet. "Don't give up, okay?" she said to Penny, smiling.

Penny smiled, a bit surprised still that a complete stranger would offer her that encouragement. Maybe women who struggled to conceive simply bonded over that, the same way military wives or recovering alcoholics bonded. "Thanks," she said sincerely, momentarily regretting that they couldn't drown their angst in the alcohol.

"Who was that?"

She jumped before realizing that it was Leonard. She blinked, confused that she hadn't seen him approach, or even the older woman leaving the room with her sister. "Just a woman who beat this thing," she said, giving off what she hoped was an optimistic smile.

"Beat…?"

"Some issue with reproductive health," Penny said.

"See?" Leonard sat down next to her, "it's not impossible. Almost nothing is impossible, especially when this is a matter of science. That's the beauty of science, really, I mean, for example, people told Albert Einstein…"

"Stop," she said, shaking her head and putting it on his shoulder. "I'm too tired."

* * *

><p>"I just want to start out by saying that it's very unlikely that you have cancer," the doctor told Penny. "It's fairly rare, and your symptoms could be a number of things. A tract infection of some kind, or even an unexplainable cause; you could just have these symptoms at the same time by mere coincidence. But we'll take you in for a scan and run some other tests, and we'll see what those show us."<p>

"Will my insurance cover it?" Penny asked.

The friendly smile slid from the doctor's face. "All of it? Unlikely." She said honestly. "But I'll have the people at the desk double check your insurance plan, some plans will cover it all if it's medically necessary, which I can say it is."

Penny glanced at Leonard, who tried to give her a reassuring smile. His arm was around her shoulder, and he squeezed it, trying to comfort her. "We'll do it," he said to the doctor. "No matter what, I mean…we have to."

"Okay." The doctor spoke with them for a minute more, and then left the room to get some paperwork.

"Leonard," Penny said when she was gone, "how are we going to pay for this?"

Leonard was silent for a moment. "We have our honeymoon money."

Penny looked pained. "Switzerland."

"I'll get us to Switzerland," he promised. "Someday. Right now we need to make sure you're okay." He kissed her cheek. "Switzerland can wait."

"It's destiny, Leonard," Penny said. "We're never going to get there. And if it's going to kill or almost kill one of us this time, God knows what fate will do next. We're never going to Switzerland."

Leonard had a feeling that she was only making such a big deal about Switzerland because she was trying to deny the actual problem, now that it seemed so real to them. But hey, whatever worked for her. "Yes, we will," Leonard said. "Whenever we get married. We'll get there."

She nodded. "Yeah," she said quietly, looking down at his hand, resting on her leg. She put a hand on top of it. "I miss Raj and Howard."

He nodded. "Me, too."

The doctor came back into the room. "Okay, he said," we can have you in for an ultrasound in three days' time, for now we're going to draw some blood and test the CA 125 levels in your blood. That doesn't pick up early stage cancer, but I'll have it ordered stat and we can have the results back to you tomorrow morning and if those levels are normal, then at the very least you don't have a later stage of it. That should ease your mind a bit while you wait to get your ultrasound.

Penny looked at Leonard and bit her lip, and he took her hand and squeezed it. "What if the tests show that something's wrong?"

"Then we'll try surgery to remove the cancer," the doctor said. "This is a nasty disease, but it's not always fatal. Never give up, especially before we know for certain if anything is wrong or not." He motioned to a nurse that had just entered the room. "Lisa is going to draw your blood, and we'll send it off stat." He stood up and held out his hand, which Leonard and then Penny shook. "Feel free to call if you have any questions," he said, nodding toward Penny as he exited the room.

Leonard felt Penny's hand squeeze his. She wasn't a fan of needles. He squeezed back as the nurse put the antiseptic on Penny's skin and readied the needle. "You good with needles?" she asked.

"Do I like them, or will I tolerate them?" Penny asked. "Because the answers are 'Hell no' and 'I guess I have to.' She let out a deep sigh. "I'll do whatever I have to."

**Hope you liked it! Sorry I couldn't get up as early as the previous ones; I had an exam today (so much fun). I'll have another chapter up on Friday, probably in the afternoon once I get home from university for spring break (whoo hoo)!**


	33. The Possible Penny Problem

**Almost totally forgot to post today guys, apologies! You can thank Joni for reviewing a bunch of chapters and reminding me, I got into 2 Broke Girls and Mentalist one shots and I guess felt "I wrote, that was my job for the day!" And then I was like HOLY CRAP I HAVE TO UPDATE THE BABYFIC! So…apologies! For both the wait and having to read all that rambling I just threw at you all. :P**

**Still own nothing.**

The following morning, Penny threw up after eating, causing her to have another reaction similar to the panic attack. Leonard pulled her back from the toilet after she'd finished throwing up, holding her against him and trying to talk her into a calmer state. He could feel her shaking; he wasn't sure if it was in weakness or fear. Seconds later, he realized it was neither; she was struggling not to cry.

"Shhh," he said, easing backward so he was sitting; Penny right in front of him; her back against his chest. "Don't do that. It's okay. Do you need to cry?"

Penny shook her head. Leonard bit his lip. He had a feeling that she'd resigned herself not to cry in front of him, and he hated that. He knew she wanted to, and he wanted to be able to hold her while she let it all out. Her refusing to let the emotion show was making him feel useless, although he knew that he was there for her anyway. Still, he wished she would stop holding it all in. It wasn't good to do that; he doubted she was letting go to Bernadette and Amy, either, not with the former still devastated over Howard's temporary assignment. And he wanted to be there for her as much as she didn't want to look weak in front of him.

"I never puke, not unless I'm drunk," Penny said in a strained voice.

"Vomiting is not a symptom," he told her. "Maybe the eggs were bad."

"Maybe," she said, nodding. "Maybe." She took in a deep breath and let it out. "You and Sheldon have a tendency to not have new eggs in your fridge." She wiped her mouth, letting out a quick laugh. Leonard?"

"Uh-huh?"

"We're sitting on the bathroom floor."

He had known this, but her putting it out verbally made him glance around and laugh. He let go of her so she could rise, and she turned and grabbed his wrist to help him up. "I have to work in two hours," she said, glancing toward her bed. "Do you want to try…?"

He shook his head. "Not until we get the results back."

"It's not going to change anything."

"You're going to be in pain again."

"We don't know that."

"Penny," Leonard said, putting his hands playfully on her shoulders. "No."

"But…" Penny looked away. "I keep thinking that if it doesn't hurt, then that means I'm okay."

"But if it does," Leonard said, "it'll scare us even more, and it could be nothing. And I'm not trying to sound negative, but let's face it, if it doesn't hurt, that still doesn't mean anything."

She sighed, putting her head on his shoulder. "I'm sorry I've been acting so stupidly."

"Throwing up isn't being stupid," he said, curling his arms around her.

"You know what I mean," she said, sighing heavily and curling her fingers around his jacket. She glanced back toward the bed. "Please?"

"No!"

"Leonard! I'm the one that had the pain, and I'm the one that wants to do it!"

"And _I'm_ the one that caused it," Leonard said.

"It's not you."

"What else would it be?" Leonard asked.

"Me. If I'm…you know, sick."

"Penny," Leonard said firmly, taking her by the shoulders, "I know you want to get pregnant now, because it would prove that you're okay. But until we know what we're dealing with, I _refuse_ to take part in _any_ activities that could put you in pain."

She sighed, slumping her shoulders slightly. "I guess." She stepped toward him and slid her arms around him. "You're too good of a guy. You're supposed to just want me all the time."

"I do," he said, putting his arms around her. "But it's not smart right now. And I like to think I'm that, too." He squeezed her gently, hoping she understood, not used to having such conversations. He still desired her above all things, but…he couldn't take the risk right now. It scared him too damn much.

Penny slid her arms out from between them to put around his neck. "Okay. But part of me wants to take that chance."

Leonard said nothing; he swayed back and forth gently, running his fingers through Penny's hair, staying with her until he had to leave for work. His car, ironically, wouldn't start that morning, so he drove Penny's to work. Her check engine light was still on, and the check the check engine light light that Sheldon installed was dark, so either something was wrong with that one, or her engine was the longest lasting problematic engine in the history of the world. Knowing their luck, it'd burst into flame right about now.

Every time he left her these days, he wondered if she'd be there when he got back. He knew deep down that she wasn't going to pass away today, or even in the next few weeks and it certainly wouldn't be some sudden thing, to come without warning, but he couldn't get past the fear that every time he left her, it could be the last time he'd see her eyes, or that smile, or hear her voice, or feel her hands in his, or taste her lips.

And it sucked.

He didn't even try to change the car music from the country radio station Penny had the dial turned to his CD in the consul that had all of John Williams' finest. And on a day like this without the Possible Penny Problem factored into the equation, he'd be blasting either that or some Black Eyed Peas because he never did get to finish jamming out to that song.

A car ran a red light and nearly hit him. "Son of a bitch," Leonard said, bitterly. He normally didn't curse at other cars, and he hardly ever honked the horn, but today he really didn't give a rat's ass – a normal rat or a giant rat – about if people thought he was a bad – tempered man or not. He couldn't roll down the window and just explain that he was terrified that his girlfriend had terminal cancer. He reached over and cranked up the radio, his hand freezing on the dial as the lyrics were pumped into the car.

_When you're weak, I'll be strong. When you let go, I'll hold on. When you need to cry, I swear I'll be there to dry your eyes. When you feel lost, and scared to death, like you can't take one more step, just take my hand, together we can do it. I'm gonna love you through it._

Leonard's hand went from the dial to his mouth, and he kept it there for the rest of the ride. That, that song right there, made him vow to never cry.

Because, he told himself, there might not be anything to cry about. But if there was…he'd be her rock. He wouldn't overthink anything. He wouldn't overreact to anything. He'd be the solid that she needed, because he'd have the rest of his life without her to feel sorry for himself.

**Sorry it was so late! Hope you liked it. New chapter up on Sunday!**


	34. To Know Without Knowing

**Here's your new chapter, guys! The update times are going to be relatively sporadic this next week, since I'm on break, but they will keep coming, every other day! Hope you're continuing to enjoy the fic, I love each and every one of you reading it!**

**And yeah, I still own nothing. Humph.**

Knock_ knock knock _"Leonard?"

_Knock knock knock_ "Leonard?"

_Knock knock knock _"Leonard?"

Leonard raised his head from his desk in irritation. "What, Sheldon?"

His friend gave him a look that suggested that he shouldn't have to explain himself. "It's lunch time."

Leonard glanced at the time on his computer and nodded. "Yeah?"

Sheldon appeared even more confused than before. "Aren't you going to go to the cafeteria?"

"Nope."

"Leonard?"

"What?"

"I'm confused."

"I'm not hungry," Leonard said. "There's your explanation."

"Are you suffering from some sort of disease?"

"If I say yes, will you leave?" He asked. "And if not, will you leave if I say it's contagious?"

Sheldon looked offended. "You know, if you don't watch your tone I'm going to start to think that you don't want me here." He straightened his posture. "I'm going to eat."

"Have a good lunch, Sheldon," Leonard said as his roommate vanished from the threshold, trying his best to sound polite. He was sure that with his Vulcan hearing Sheldon detected the experimental physicist's head thumping back down on the desk top.

"What's the matter with _you_?"

He raised his head again, wondering if the headache was from stress, hitting the desk, or from so many interruptions. "Hi, Leslie."

Sheldon's old nemesis entered Leonard's office, holding her coffee mug in one hand. "Kripke told me you weren't paying attention in the meeting this morning. What's wrong?"

"You haven't spoken to me for six months," Leonard said, confused as to why she cared.

"It's throwing Sheldon off," Leslie said. "And as much as we all love that, when we don't know why we can't anticipate how he's going to react and then it just stops being fun and becomes inconvenient for the entire city." She pulled the stool from beneath the window and set it in front of Leonard's desk. "So," she said, sitting down and setting her mug on one of the few places on the desktop without papers, "what's going on?"

Leonard shrugged. "Just…personal stuff."

"Ah," Leslie said. "Blondie ask you to do something a little too…demanding?" She grinned mischievously.

Leonard frowned. "What? No!" He shook his head. "It's nothing, Leslie."

She got up, bid him farewell, and left, but Leonard knew that she didn't believe his lie. He was never good at lying, and certainly not when he was this upset.

As much as Penny swore that it was her, that what had happened that awful night was not his fault, Leonard knew better. If they hadn't tried to have sex, she wouldn't have been in pain. The difference between Penny not having sex and Penny having sex was Leonard. Therefore, it was his fault. That was how science worked, with mutually inclusive and exclusive events as well as process of elimination and cause and effect. Whether or not she had ovarian cancer or any other illness, Leonard had been the one to inflict the pain upon her. He had seen her face change when it started, he had felt her body tense up, and he had heard her voice as she assured him that she was okay while struggling not to cry. And now, whether anything was wrong with her or not, and whether she'd admit it or not, Leonard knew that she was scared as Hell. And he would not ever be convinced that it wasn't all his fault, even though neither of them could have known. And even if she didn't have cancer, there was still the question of infertility – if nothing was wrong, then why wasn't it happening?

"Leonard?"

"I never was good at catching breaks," he mumbled, looking up. "Hi, Gilda."

She looked uncomfortable being there. "How…how are you?"

He shrugged. "You know. Trying to get some quiet time."

"Oh." She bit her lip. "I…I can leave you alone."

"Thank you," he said, and Gilda turned to go. "Wait."

She stopped, turned back around, and cocked her head. "Yes?"

"Come," he said, gesturing, and Gilda sat in the chair across from his desk. "You know how somehow the two of us always knew never to complicate our friendship by making it romantic?"

"_You _always knew that," she reminded him. "I had that one sided thing going on for quite a while there."

Leonard smiled. "True. But…do you think that it's possible for people to _really_ know something…without really knowing it?"

"Are you asking if a gut feeling you may have about you and or Penny is right? If there's a way to know?" She cocked her head. "Because I"m not sure how to answer that. If you're going back to the conversation we had about us just knowing we weren't supposed to be involved, I think we were about as sure as we could have been at that time, and hindsight shows we were right. But I couldn't say if it was a coincidence or not. I'd like to think it was not. But...I really don't know what you're asking."

He sighed. "_I_ really don't know what I'm asking. I'm just so messed up right now." He put his head in his hands. "But this isn't something that I can work out on a board."

"Well, what are you feeling?" Gilda asked, pushing the stool Leslie had sat on a bit away from her so she could prop her feet up.

"I'm feeling that what I'm worried about is the worst possible scenario and we just don't know it yet. But we both tend to assume the worst…excuse me," he said as his phone rang. "Dr. Hofstadter."

"Leonard," came the familiar voice, "the hospital called."

"Oh yeah?" Leonard said. "What did they say?"

"Well," Penny said. "Good news and bad news. My blood levels don't indicate advanced ovarian cancer."

"What?" Leonard repeated, not quite able to believe it. Gilda rose, nodding to Leonard and easing out of the office; he was glad that she recognized that he needed to take this call alone. "Really?"

"Mmm hmm. So at the very least, I won't be dead by Sunday. Though the blood test also showed that I'm not pregnant, so that doesn't explain the symptoms. And it's not saying I don't have cancer…it's just saying that if I do have it I'll have a fighting chance."

"A fighting chance would be all you need," Leonard told her. "We're used to beating the odds, aren't we?"

"You mean with the whole 'beauty and the geek' thing that Raj and Howard keep teasing us about?"

"Hold up," Leonard said jokingly. "I wouldn't quite call you a geek yet. But you're getting there."

* * *

><p>Bernadette smiled when she heard the click that showed that Howard had picked up the phone. "Hey, you," he said warmly.<p>

"Hey," she said, feeling slightly shy, as she did each time she heard his voice over the phone. "How are you?"

"Tired."

"Oh." She giggled. "Time difference, huh?"

"Just a little," he said, smiling. "How about you, Berni?"

"I'm okay," she said, tucking her legs underneath her. "I am."

"Is someone not?" Howard asked, sounding concerned.

"Well…" Bernadette hesitated. "Penny and Leonard have a bit of a health concern."

"Oh no," Howard said. "Did she hurt him?"

"What?" Bernadette asked. "No! It's…" she almost said _the other way around_, but knew how sensitive Leonard was about that incident, and Penny didn't even blame him anyway. "It's Penny. I don't know if I should be telling you this!" she said, her voice getting shrill at the end of her sentence as she tried to stop herself from starting to cry.

"Bernadette!" Howard almost shouted through the phone, "what's wrong? Tell me."

"Penny's afraid she might have cancer," Bernadette said. "They don't know. They'll find out tomorrow, they have a test…" she trailed off, not ending her sentence with a tone that suggested so, but she had nothing more to add.

Howard was silent for a long moment, perhaps wondering if she had finished. "Oh wow."

"I know," Bernadette said, nodding even though she knew that he couldn't see her. "They're really scared. I think later I'm going to take Penny out to keep her mind off of things."

"That's probably a good idea," Howard said. "Gosh, this is…damn it!"

"What?"

"Why does this have to happen when Raj and I are _here_? If she's really sick…we'll come home to be with her, but it'll take a while to be able to get a flight home…"

"Don't worry about it now," Bernadette said. "They don't know yet. And I don't know if you're supposed to know."

"They haven't told us," Howard said. "But I bet it's so we don't worry. Look, I'm buying a plane ticket home in a week. If we need to, we'll use it. If we don't, then I'm out a few hundred bucks. I'll live without the money. But if Penny's sick we'll have a way home."

"I don't think Penny would want you to give up your space opportunity for her," Bernadette said quietly.

"No, but I'd want to," Howard said. "And Raj would too. Leonard's dating her but it doesn't mean we don't love her, too…though in a different way, of course. We're coming home if she's sick; you better keep me updated on that."

Bernadette's eyes welled up. "I wish you could come home anyway."

"I know, Berni," he said. "I miss you. I love you a lot."

"I love you a lot, too," she said. She glanced at the clock. "I have a dentist appointment. I'll call you tomorrow, okay?"

"Sounds good, sweetie," he said warmly. Bernadette hung up the phone and sniffed. She didn't have a dentist appointment, or any appointment at all. She just didn't want Howard to hear her cry as hard as she was about to. She couldn't deal with her husband being hours away; about to do something dangerous, and deal with the idea that one of her best friends could be terminally ill at the same time. It was enough to make her almost want to throw herself into that vat of flesh eating bacteria and relish the pain.

**I promise we'll find out what (if anything) is wrong with Penny soon – I've had this written for more than a year and I do have it going somewhere. As I can't write a chapter for each day of their lives this entire time they're trying, I am pacing what I do write slowly on purpose to help readers get a sense of the frustration and redundancy that Leonard and Penny are going through. But things are moving places, I promise!**


	35. The Darkest Night

**Here's your new chapter, everyone! It's rather long, but I didn't want to split it up in two because while I do want to keep pointing out that a lot of time is passing in the fic, I don't see the need to split up one evening at this point. So here you go, your next 4,000 words. : )**

**And I still don't own anything. In case anyone thought that had changed since Sunday, or something. :P**

That evening, Bernadette called, and asked if Penny wanted to go to the beach. As far as Leonard knew, Bernadette wasn't aware of what was going on…but it wouldn't surprise him if Penny had told her. They were best friends, after all. He was glad that she was going. Hanging out with a girl friend was the perfect way for Penny to be distracted from the situation, and he'd have paid for a distraction for her if that was the only way she was going to get one. Cow knew she needed it.

However, her spending the evening with Bernadette left Leonard alone. Alone to think about what was going on. Alone to worry. And to be away from the person whom he might not get to spend the rest of his life with, and who was spending what could be very precious time with someone else. Not that Leonard wanted to deny her Bernadette. Penny loved Bernadette, and Cow knew he'd been spending much more time with her than he usually would with their conflicting work schedules. But it didn't change the fact that when she wasn't with him, he wondered gloomily if this was something he'd be forced to get used to.

Cow knew he needed a distraction, too.

Leonard walked in circles inside Penny's apartment, trying to think of something to do. Calling Gilda, Raj, or Howard crossed his mind, but he dismissed the thoughts. He didn't want to talk to anyone and he didn't even know what time it was in Russia. And Gilda missed enough sleep with Iris to take care of; he wasn't going to disturb her and her husband so he could whine about Penny.

He ended up crossing the hall and entering his apartment. Sheldon was sitting on the couch. "Good evening, Leonard." He didn't seem to be aware of what was going on. Leonard momentarily wondered how much of a reaction Sheldon would have if he did know. He was so mechanical about some things, and so sensitive and fragile about others.

"Hey," he said rushing through the living area, down the hallway, and to his own room. He was feeling frantic, he needed to get away from people, and go somewhere that people wouldn't come looking for him because he wanted to be alone. Because he took to hear the saying "you can love someone so much, but you can never love people as much as you can miss them."

Yanking open his dresser drawer, he pulled something large and blue from the inside. Gathering it up, Leonard kicked the drawer shut and headed back down the hall.

"Leonard? Is something troubling you?" Sheldon asked as he came back through the main room.

"Yes, Sheldon! Something is 'troubling me.'" Leonard made quotation marks in the air, the blanket tucked under his arm, as he snapped at his roommate. "The woman I love more than anything in this world could be dying and I can't do a single damn thing about it."

Sheldon started. He looked at Leonard with an odd expression and then cocked his head. "Shall I make tea?"

Leonard shook his head, not wanting to snap further but feeling unable to stop and have a civil conversation with Dr. Wackadoodle. "No. Unless you want it, or something." He spun around and exited the apartment, letting the door slam behind him. Rushing up the stairs, he opened the door to the roof and finally stopped, just inside, panting from running up the stairs.

The night was quiet. Well, as quiet as a city could be. The roof was fairly empty, certainly completely void of people, and as Leonard shut the door the reality hit him that _he was by himself here._ He walked near the edge and sat down, unfolding the blanket and sliding his arms through the sleeves. Now that he was truly alone, out of apartments and away from other people and with only the sky and the stars visible above him, Leonard let the tears well up.

Despite the assurances of the doctors that the cause of the fertility problems likely wasn't serious, the words_ ovarian cancer_ wouldn't get out of Leonard's mind. They couldn't. They were too terrifying. If Penny had cancer – that type of cancer – there was a very real chance that she might die despite the previous tests showing that it wasn't in its advanced stages yet. She could die, and there would be nothing – nothing – that Leonard could do to help her. He'd just have to wait and watch helplessly as the illness overcame her and stole the breath and the heartbeat that he had come to love so much. And in those final weeks, final days, and final hours, he would not even be able to tell her that it would all be okay. He knew he would not be able to lie to her when she'd be so very aware of the awful truth.

He hated feeling so helpless; he hated the burning in his eyes, he hated the knife in his chest, and he almost hated loving her so much because of how he was feeling now. He hadn't told her he loved her enough. He hadn't held her often enough, or kissed her passionately enough. He hadn't felt her knees weaken enough when he kissed her by surprise. He hadn't had enough time to spend with her!

Leonard hugged himself and rocked side to side, trying to keep himself under control. He wasn't supposed to cry. He was just supposed to love her through it, whatever _it _turned out to be.

But he felt as if he couldn't handle it anymore. Then he realized that he _could_ let himself go up here. No one else was around, and Penny wasn't there for him to be strong for. There were no restraints in this place, his temporary, private haven. Here he could let it all out, turn his sorrow into tears so he could be there for her in the morning, when they still wouldn't know for sure. And if tomorrow they learned that she wouldn't be here much longer, maybe crying tonight would give him the strength to stay strong for her in the future, however long that might be.

The moment the tears flooded over Leonard felt like a weak individual, unworthy, and unmanly, despite being by himself. Then he was too engulfed with sorrow to care. He rolled slowly from a sitting position to his side, his body shaking down to his shoes, his glasses catching the tears where the rim met the actual glass and running down the side to drip onto the cement. Eventually, he pulled himself into a sitting position again, embarrassed to be curled up in the fetal position on the cold cement, staring straight out across the city, hoping that one day the view could look beautiful again.

* * *

><p>When Penny returned from her evening with Bernadette, she got the mail she'd forgotten twice earlier in the day and headed upstairs. It had been nice to spend a few hours with the other waitress, and the beaches had been fairly empty, so they could talk without having to worry too much about people overhearing. Bernadette was such a positive, cheerful woman once one got to know her, and she always made Penny feel better, despite the other woman mistakenly believing that tomorrow she would have her ultrasound, when it was really the day after. Penny came home not feeling positive about the whole situation, but definitely better than she had upon returning from the doctor's office. She reached the top of the stairs without noticing that she didn't have any shortness of breath.<p>

Leonard was not in her apartment. Penny figured he'd be back any moment, so she showered and changed into her Hello Kitty shorts and pink night shirt. She re-entered the living area and discovered that she was still alone. "Strange," she said aloud, sliding her feet into slippers and heading across the hall.

4A appeared to be empty as well. "Very strange," she said again to herself. Nothing appeared to be out of place, and the lights were off. Maybe Leonard had gone to sleep on this side of the hallway, in which case she'd simply join him.

His room was empty, and his dresser drawer was half-open. Penny crossed the room and closed it – for lack of anything better to do – and then straightened and looked around. Where was he? It wasn't like Leonard to be gone when she came home, nor was it typical for him to not leave her a note when he _was_ actually going to be gone. It _definitely _wasn't like him to not be around whenever she was ill, and although they didn't know yet if she was, it still surprised Penny that he hadn't been waiting for her to come home.

Penny exited his room and began to walk back into the living area without noticing that despite the long day, she was not feeling fatigued. She was passing by Sheldon's room when she heard a sound that made her stop. It sounded like…like a sound that was something that unnerved her whenever it came from Leonard's roommate.

She rapped lightly on his door. "Sheldon?"

Silence.

Penny bit her lip, unsure of what to do. Finally, she put her hand on the doorknob. "Shelly, I'm coming in, sweetie." She cracked open the door and peered inside. Sheldon was curled up on top of the covers, much like he was when he'd returned from the North Pole. He looked over as she entered the room, and she could tell by his red eyes that he'd been crying. Penny cocked her head, and lowered her voice to a quiet, non-threatening tone. Mary Cooper had always told her that Sheldon was like a baby deer, and could get spooked by strong personalities when he was upset or rattled. "Sheldon, sweetie, what's wrong?"

"Nothing," he said, trying to look irritated. "I'm _fine_."

He wasn't fine. Penny came toward him and sat on the edge of the bed. "Sheldon," she said. "You know that you can tell me anything. Leonard, too. Just because we're…" she wondered how much Leonard had told him. "…getting married and wanting to have a family doesn't mean we're not here for you."

"I can't talk to Leonard."

Penny smiled. He sounded like such a little kid. "Sheldon," she said, putting her hand on his blanket covered shoulder and not caring when he flinched, just a little bit, at the unauthorized touch. "What's wrong?"

"Are you going to die?"

The question surprised Penny; it was abrupt and spoken in a quiet, unsure tone that wasn't typical of Sheldon. It added to the irresolute atmosphere of the evening; nothing was as it should be. "Sheldon, _what's going on_?"

"Leonard said that you were going to die." Sheldon looked away. "Then I looked in his browser history. Simple enough to hack. I have a masters' and two PhD's and his password for everything is the same." He was silent a moment, and then sat up. "Penny?"

She cocked her head, trying to keep her voice low and calm. "Yeah?"

"Do you have ovarian cancer?"

Penny hesitated. "That…is a cause of fertility issues in females, but…"

"I know that, of course I know that! Do_ you_ have it?"

She sighed. "I don't know."

"If you die…" Sheldon said quietly, sliding into a lying position again. "What's going to happen to the rest of us? Our entire group will fall apart…even I won't be able to hold it together." He sniffed. "And that's borderline embarrassing."

"Aw, Shelly, I'm not going to die."

"You don't know that, how could you _possibly_ know that?"

She sighed. She didn't know that. She didn't have a clue what was wrong with her. But she couldn't tell Sheldon that. "I promise, I'm not going anywhere."

"That's what Mee Maw said."

"What?"

"When she moved to a different part of Texas. 'I'll still see you every weekend, Moon Pie.' 'You know I still love you, Moon Pie.' I've hardly seen her since then." He sniffed. "If something happens to you, I'll lose my two best friends." He looked at her. "Who will drive me to Pottery Barn? Who will take me to Disneyland? Who will talk to me when I have nightmares?"

Penny smiled. "Even if something happens to me, Leonard will still be here, he did all those things for you before I showed up, didn't he? And he loves you as much as I do."

"No he doesn't. He loves _you_. "

"Sheldon," Penny said carefully. "You're right. Leonard loves me. And I love him. _But_ there are different kinds of love. You love your Mee Maw, right?"

"Yes, of course."

"But not in a romantic sense, right? At least not in the way you love Amy?"

"Of course not, don't be silly." Sheldon shook his head. "And for clarification, I do not love Amy in an amorous way, either."

"I know that, Sheldon, that's not the point," Penny said, putting her hand against her forehead. "My point is, there are more than one or a few types of love, yes?"

"I suppose."

"See?" Penny said, smiling. "Leonard and I love each other, but we love you, too. And Leonard may not tell you that, but he cares about you, and he'll take care of you no matter what."

Sheldon looked down. "But who will sing me Soft Kitty?"

At that, Penny felt her eyes begin to water. She didn't want to start crying in front of Sheldon; he wouldn't be able to handle it. "I'll be here to sing you Soft Kitty, Shelly. I promise." She hoped he didn't hear the crack in her voice on her last word.

He managed a small smile. "I don't know how much say you'll have in the matter, but all right."

"Do you feel better?" She asked, smiling. Sheldon nodded. "That's good, sweetie. Hey, I have a question for you. I hope you can answer it."

"Any question you can come up with to ask me, I can answer."

Penny ignored the insult. "I've been looking for Leonard. Do you know where he is?"

"He grabbed his blanket with sleeves and bolted out of here hours ago. I think he went to the roof."

"Okay, thanks, sweetie." Penny stood up. "Want me to turn out the light?"

"Yes please," Sheldon said sitting up to pull the covers over him. "Good-night, Penny."

* * *

><p>Penny climbed the stairs cautiously. She wasn't sure why Leonard would go to the roof. When he was upset he usually stayed home, in his room. He never vanished, and if he was to leave she would have expected him to go to the comic book store…not the roof. Was he planning on jumping? That thought scared Penny, and she quickened her pace. She didn't think he would do that, not while she was here, but…nothing seemed a sure thing anymore.<p>

"Oh, my God," she said under her breath, suddenly feeling sick. Was it only six months ago that they'd been so happy, so carefree, and feeling that the two of them together could tackle anything the world had to offer? And now Raj and Howard were at training camp, leaving Penny and Leonard with Sheldon to deal with the most emotional, painful time thus far in their lives. Was it only earlier that day that he had told her that they could beat the odds? She had taken great comfort in his words, but all good feelings from that day and her evening with Bernadette had, for some reason, completely abandoned her and allowed the fear and paranoia and sadness to enter her being. And as confidant as Leonard had appeared earlier in the day, she didn't know if the two of them could overcome this. She loved Leonard more than all the other things she loved in the world combined; she still didn't believe that love could beat death. The movies that said otherwise were sweet to watch, but in the real world, in real life, Penny realized that she didn't buy it.

Reaching the door to the roof, Penny hesitated, wondering if she should knock. She took a breath and slowly opened the door.

He was sitting with his knees up to his chest-as near as she could tell-near the edge, looking out over the city. He was wearing the blanket she'd given him before he'd left her for a summer what felt like a lifetime ago, her silent promise to wait for him, and he looked like he was curled up in a ball, with his head tucked on his chest. Penny's hands fell to her sides. He looked so helpless.

_Why do I have to be the strong one?_ She thought with a touch of anger. It was _she_ that could be terminally ill, not Leonard or Sheldon, yet she had to comfort _them_. She just spent time in Sheldon's room promising to sing him that stupid song and, dammit, getting emotional over it, and now what, she had to go and make Leonard feel better too, when it was her who could have cancer spreading throughout her young body?

Penny realized she was being unfair. Sheldon had been hit with this suddenly, and while he didn't understand romantic love or sexual feelings he knew what death was like. He was relatively childlike anyway; this sort of thing would have a huge effect on him. And Leonard hadn't been in her apartment or his-he had come up here to get away, so she wouldn't have to see him like this. Looking at his body jerk ever so slightly, Penny realized that he had come up here because he was trying to be strong for her. It gave her a warm feeling in her heart and a wave of sadness over her at the same time. He was suffering as much as she was, maybe more. _Probably_ more, she realized. She could wish with all her remaining time that she wouldn't have to leave him, but _her_ concern and grief would end with her life. He'd be left here, in this cruel world of awareness, for possibly another sixty years, and all by himself. He was the one without a health concern; he'd be the one that would have to watch her die, and then after her death, he'd be the one that would have to go on. And it was then that she realized what was different about them. He didn't want anything to happen to _her_. She didn't want to leave _him_ all alone. Neither of them were worried about themselves, and neither of them could do anything about it.

She was only a few steps behind him now, and she could hear him crying. Coming up to the roof already emotionally shaken; seeing him like that made Penny want to cry again. "Leonard," she said, angry at her voice for cracking in the middle of the word.

He turned around, and Penny could see the tears on his face. "Penny," he said. "What are you-?"

"I love you, Leonard," she blurted, needing to say it, to somehow make up for all those times back then when she had failed to do so, dropping to her knees next to him and wrapping her arms around him. She felt his right arm moving as he curled it around her. She pushed her head into his shoulder, and they clung to each other.

"You're not supposed to see me like this," Leonard said, angry at how broken his voice sounded.

"I don't care," she told him, pulling him closer.

After a long moment, she released her arms in case he wanted to end the hug. It didn't surprise her when he didn't move, so she put her arms back around him, again remembering their parting for the summer. "I can't let you go tonight," he whispered, tightening his hold. "I'm sorry, but I can't."

"I'm not going anywhere," she responded, touching her nose to his. "I'm not. I'm staying right with you! As long as I can!" They both began crying; Penny felt him convulsing in misery as both of them completely broke down at the same time.

It was a long time before either of them could speak. Once in each other's arms, they'd cried without restraint, unable to speak, bodies shaking in fear and grief, until they finally ended up lying down. Penny's head was still against his shoulder, her arm across his chest as his own arms surrounded her. Damn, Leonard had a way of making her feel safe, even when she was well aware he couldn't. She gave a deep sigh and moved her head slightly. "Are you okay?"

He didn't answer. Penny was glad; she knew that it was a stupid question. Neither of them were okay. Leonard sighed, ran his hand up and down her arm, and tilted his head to look at her. "I promise you," he said, his eyes red, "that if something happens to you…"

She put her finger to his lips. "Shhhh."

He pulled her hand away. "Stop it."

"You stop it," she said. "Save the promises. The promises to stay single, the promises to be faithful, the promises to never love anyone else. I know you, I know they're coming, just save them until you have to tell me."

"You know, though."

Penny felt another tear slide down her face. Her chest and stomach and eyes and throat hurt and her heart hurt even worse and she was scared and tired, and here Leonard was, desperate to let her know how much she meant to him, as if he still doubted that she knew the extent of his love, or as if he feared she would die tonight and he'd never get to tell her everything that was in his heart. It pained her that he felt the need to tell her all of these things, felt the need to spill them out like in a bad romance novel, because he was honestly afraid he'd never get a million chances to show her, and because he had himself thinking he had failed to show her a million times before. She wondered if he honestly did doubt that she knew just how important she was to him. She knew she did – she suspected it was identical to how much he meant to her. She looked down at Leonard's hands. "Leonard, there's billions of people in this world…but of the millions of men in my generation…I'm so grateful that I was able to find you. I've never met a better person, and…" she was choking on tears, "If we find out tomorrow that I'm not going to last, well, I'm just glad that I stopped denying what my heart was telling me soon enough to have these moments with you. Every hour…" she trailed off, shaking her head rapidly, as a new wave of tears escaped her eyes. "I'm sorry I'm falling apart like this," she said.

He shook his head slowly. "_I'm _sorry. I wanted to be strong for you, but…"

"Maybe we needed this," Penny said, wiping the tears away from her eyes. "Maybe we needed to cry with each other."

Leonard smiled at her. "We're still crying," he pointed out. She smiled, and leaned forward to kiss him. "Do you want to go downstairs?" he asked her quietly.

Penny thought. "No," she said. "There's…people down there." Leonard smiled, understanding. He lay back down, and Penny curled up next to him. They were silent for many minutes, and then Penny spoke again, her voice more stable than it had been since she'd reached the roof. "It's just…hard…not knowing," she said after a long moment, voicing what both of them were thinking. "You know? I mean…what if you suddenly get told you only have a few months left? I mean, there'd be so much I would want to do…where would I start?"

"Here's where we would start," Leonard said. "We'd go to Las Vegas and get married."

He felt – more than saw – her sigh. "Why would you want to do that? Pay money for something that wasn't going to last?"

"I'd want to do that because I love you and whenever something happens to one of us, whether it be six months or six decades from now, I want the other to be able to say, 'that's my wife'."

"If you die before me," Penny said, "I promise I will go telling everyone, 'that's my wife'."

She felt – more than heard – him laugh. "You know what I mean. And I'm serious. If we have to, we'll run off and get married. I gave you that ring, and it's going to happen. For better or for worse, remember? Sickness, and in health."

He didn't continue. He didn't need to. He just pulled Penny closer. "Promise me you'll try to sleep?" she asked him quietly.

"Promise me the same thing," he whispered.

She pushed her nose into his cheek. "Done."

"Good," he said. "Because we can afford to sleep tonight. It's going to be okay, somehow."

"Somehow," she whispered, not completely believing it and knowing that he didn't.

She supposed that was the good thing about always thinking the worst. You were always right or pleasantly surprised.


	36. Without A Trace

**I think today is an update day...well, it_ is_ an update day, since I'm updating, but I don't know if it was _supposed_ to be one. But anyway, here you guys go. :)**

**And yeah, I haven't come into ownership of any of this stuff since I last updated.**

It was already mid-morning when the couple woke up, and the sun glinted off the scrap metal in the corner and reflected right into Leonard's eyes. They already hurt from crying, as did his stomach muscles, but for some reason he felt a little bit better. Maybe a good cry together was what he and Penny needed to find more inner strength.

"Leonard?" Penny opened her eyes and squinted

"Hmmm." He tilted his head and kissed her forehead. "Good morning. You sore?"

"My back," she said, rising into a sitting position. She smiled down at Leonard and put a hand on his stomach and the other in his hair. "Good morning, you."

He smiled up at her. "We're going to be okay," he said quietly.

She nodded. "Whatever happens…it's inevitable. We just have to roll with it." She trailed her fingers up and down his stomach in a very bad demonstration of rolling.

He nodded back. "How do you feel? Aside from sore?"

She shrugged. "Better, in a way. Oh," she added. "I did tell…Bernadette and Amy. You know, about…"

"Okay," Leonard said. "I figured. Did you have a good time last night?"

"Yeah," she said. "We just walked around, talked about you and Howard, and the future, and…" She looked off into the distance. "Can we get married?"

"No," Leonard said. "I gave you an engagement ring; we most certainly cannot ever get married."

She gave a playful roll of the eyes. "I mean once…" she trailed off. "You said last night if…" she put a hand to her mouth. "I'm done crying." She waited a second more and then continued, "if the tests show anything we'd go and get it done but if they don't and if we get pregnant can we just…you know, can we just get married after the kid's born? We'd know how much we could spend, it could be small, it could be a Homunculus wedding, it could be just us, but I don't want to raise a kid as your girlfriend or fiancé. I just want to be your wife. I want to be Mrs. Penny Hofstadter."

Leonard sat up. "Do you want to just do it before? We can do whatever you want."

She shook her head. "No, because financially this is smart, and if we can't make the best financial decision we're messing that poor kid up before it's even born. But once we have some idea of how much this is going to cost…I know that marriage isn't for everyone but I _want that_ for us. Last night made me realize how much. And as soon as I can fit into an attractive dress, I just want us to get it done, as cheaply as we can."

During her conversation their four hands had linked in a mass of fingers resting on Leonard's stomach. Leonard slid his hands out from around hers and curled them around her waist, pulling her close to him and kissing her. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him back, and when the kissed ended she slid her hands up to his face. "I'm not going to say anything else to you because we were way too Soap Opera last night," she said, smiling. "But you know."

"You do too." He said. "Are you ready to go back downstairs?"

"Yeah," Penny said regretfully. "I have to work later." She shakily rose to her feet and held a hand out to help Leonard. "Really?" He asked playfully. She grinned, and he good-naturedly took her hand and pretended that she was assisting him greatly in the process of getting up.

"Okay," he said. "We're going back down there strong, all right?"

She nodded firmly. "Yes." Leaning over, they kissed again, briefly, and descended down to the fourth floor.

Leonard let Penny into his apartment – her Cheesecake Factory uniform was in his room – and she headed toward the bathroom to take a shower while Leonard sank down into his chair and opened one of his science magazines.

"Leonard?" Penny said a few minutes later, exiting the hallway and standing near the entrance to the living room.

"What is it?" he asked, cocking his head. She looked as if she was about to cry, and he had no idea what in her path from the living room to his bedroom could have set off the waterworks again.

"Sheldon's gone."

"What do you mean?" Leonard asked, standing up.

"I mean he's not in his room and his emergency suitcase is missing and…" She threw her hands up. "He's just not here."

"It's…" Leonard realized the day of the week and frowned. "And it's…" he looked at his watch. "He's not here?"

She put her hands on her hips. "Just said that." Her hands flew to her mouth. "Oh my God, it's our fault."

Leonard was terribly confused, and it showed on his face. "How?"

"Because of us freaking out, and me maybe being sick."

Leonard smiled at her. "No, that can't be it, he…" Leonard trailed off as he realized that the night before he'd told Sheldon, in a moment of despair, that Penny was going to die. "Oh God. I must have freaked him out last night."

Penny cocked her head. "What did you say?"

"_Leonard? Is something troubling you?" Sheldon asked as he came back through the main room._

"_Yes, Sheldon! Something is 'troubling me.'" Leonard made quotation marks in the air. "The woman I love more than anything in this world could be dying." _

"He asked me if anything was wrong. I told him that I loved you and you could die, and yes, that was causing me quite a bit of distress." Leonard sighed. "But he knows I overreact sometimes, I mean he was there for that pre – date panic attack and…"

"He looked through your computer."

Leonard stopped, frowning. "What?"

"I talked to him last night. He came right out and asked me if I had the cancer. He looked at your internet history and he knows everything. He's bound to have found our list of symptoms, too." She put her face in her hands. "God…" She stopped and shook her hands, clearly trying not to let the tears fall. "Where would he go? And why would he leave now? He knows how freaked out we are…oh _God_."

Leonard came over and gently placed his arms around her. "We'll find him." He stroked her hair for a few moments, and then pulled back. "Let's go."

"Leonard," she said as they headed down the stairs, "he's run off because of us. He's so fragile emotionally, and we've shattered it, that, that little bit of stability that he has."

"He needs to understand that we can't always be strong for him," Leonard said. "He should know that occasionally we just need to…" he stopped talking, embarrassed at how his eyes were beginning to hurt. He reached over and took her hand. "We'll find him." He pulled out his phone and dialed the restaurant with the play place that Sheldon broke into when he needed to work out a problem. "Hi, this is Dr. Leonard Hofstadter, is Dr. Sheldon Cooper at your facility? Uh – huh. Okay, well if you see him, lock him in and call me."

Penny put her face in her hands. "Hey," Leonard said, putting an arm around her shoulders and the other one on her elbow. "Be strong, okay?"

She nodded. "I know." She grabbed the sleeve of his jacket. "Let's go find him."

* * *

><p>He wasn't walking the streets of Pasadena.<p>

He wasn't at the Chinese Restaurant.

He wasn't at Raj's empty apartment.

He wasn't at Gilda's working it out on her board, which disappointed Penny because yes, she was beginning to panic that they couldn't find him, but also because she'd been so sure the two board lovers would be together working it out.

He wasn't at Amy's apartment either. And that made Leonard and Penny feel a little better about not thinking of that first.

"I know where he is," Penny said as they got back in the car. "He has to be."

"I'm driving as fast as I can," Leonard said.

"As fast as you _dare_," Penny said, giving him a small smile. "Seriously, you're a mile under the speed limit. Step on it, Physicist!"

"You want me to step on it?" Leonard asked, lowering his foot on the gas. "Here you go."

"Just keep going," Penny said.

"I'm worried about him too, Penny," Leonard said, taking the turn wide so he didn't have to slow down. "God, Sheldon!"

Penny sighed, wringing her hands and letting out a sigh. She noticed Leonard was biting his lip, something he rarely did and a clear sign of his worry. She studied his profile and raised her eyebrows. "Leonard!"

He glanced over at her. "What?"

"Oh…nothing," she said, deciding not to point out the few gray hairs she saw near his ear. It wasn't the time.

But it was the time for her to voice her frustration over the sound she now heard behind them. "Dammit!"

Leonard heard the siren at the same time Penny did, and he slammed his head against the back of the seat before pulling over and rolling down the window.

The police officer walked up alongside the car. Leonard glanced at Penny and she gave him a nervous smile. "Good morning, officer," he said, managing to smile.

"License and registration, please," the officer said, and Penny reached in the consul to hand the documents to Leonard. "Do you know how fast you were going?" He asked Leonard.

"No," Leonard said, "but I knew exactly where I was."

The police officer and Penny raised their eyebrows simultaneously at Leonard, who shifted his weight in his seat. "Heisenberg…anyone?"

They reached their destination, and Penny nearly fell out of the car in her attempt to get inside the comic book store. "Hey, easy there," Leonard said.

"It's not my fault we could have been here a half an hour ago if you hadn't smart assed the police officer. Sheldon!" she yelled, flinging the door open. He wasn't in his nesting corner. She ran up to Stuart in the far corner and grabbed his sleeves. "Stuart, God dammit, where's Sheldon?"

"I…" Stuart looked confused; his face showing Penny that Sheldon hadn't been there.

"_No_," she moaned, stumbling a few steps away from Stuart and sinking to the ground. She had no idea where Sheldon was, and she was terrified that he, her little Shelly, was somewhere that he could get hit by a car or impaled by a wild…bull, or something, and she hated that she…

She felt Leonard's arms come around her as he settled on the floor behind her, and she was just so grateful that he held her and let her cry even though she was terrified for Sheldon and it was just one more thing to be afraid of and he was her constant and she needed that. He seemed to know, as he always did, and he waited for her to stop trembling before helping her to her feet. "We'll keep looking."

"What's going on?" Stuart asked curiously.

"Sheldon's run away."

"Odd," Stuart said. "He usually comes here. Or goes to Amy's."

"I know," Leonard said quietly. "Or Texas. But he's not there either. And he hasn't texted any of us."

"He's not running away for good because he didn't resign from the university," Penny said. "I don't know what he's doing!"

"Penny," Stuart said, dropping to his knees in front of her. "He can take care of…ah, who am I kidding?" He shifted into a sitting position. "You guys will find him."

Penny shook her head, putting her hands over her face.

"We're in a bit of an emotional few days, Stuart," Leonard said. _Just bear with her_, he mouthed. _And me_, he thought, but didn't dare say. _I'm so emotionally wrung out, too._

Stuart nodded. "Look, Penny, just think about where he would go. Is he at Raj's?"

"No," Penny said. "We looked there already, of course we looked there already!"

"O…kay…" Stuart glanced at Leonard. "Does he feel he needs to escape something? Or fix something? Did you pronounce the T in 'often' or break another lamp?"

"Another lamp?" Leonard asked.

Stuart shrugged. "He talks when he comes in here, you know."

"Okay," Penny said, pulling herself up. "We gotta go and find him." She sniffed. "Come on, Leonard."

"Okay," he said, getting up. "Let's go, let's go. I have a question," He said, spinning her around to face him. "where?"

Her face was resigned. "I don't know," she said, looking down. "I just don't know." She looked at Stuart. "We've got to drive. Call us if you see him? Tell him we love him. Tell him he needs to come home."

"Yeah, sure." Stuart said, nodding his head. "Will do. But honestly, if he hasn't been here yet, I don't think he'll be coming."

Penny grabbed Leonard's hand and they moved back out to the car. "Hold on," Leonard said, racing around to beat her to the driver's seat. "Let me drive."

"You drive too slow."

"You're not in any shape to drive, Penny!" Leonard said.

She tried to yank his hands off the door handle. "Let me in the Goddamn car!"

Leonard wanted to just give her her way. She was still Penny, and he still didn't know how much longer she'd be around, but she was a dangerous driver and she was upset. "No," Leonard said.

Penny burst into tears, dropping to the pavement and leaning her back against the car door.

Leonard dropped down next to her. "What?"

"Why?" Penny said, tears running freely. "He's so selfish! He's so stupid! He just…he just runs off and he knows that we'd worry and he knows that we'd go to Flatland and back for him and he _knows_ we have other things to worry about right now!"

"Penny," Leonard said. He wanted to completely take her side and tell her that his roommate was in the wrong but at the same time his long friendship with Sheldon was telling him that Penny wasn't entirely correct. "That's how Sheldon is. He can't help it. He's a child in a lot of ways. You said it yourself. He's fragile. He needs both of us."

"Okay," Penny said, sniffing. "So if he needs us, and he knows that,"

"I didn't say he knows it."

"Yeah but he does," Penny said, remembering their conversation the night before, "then he'd be somewhere trying to…fix this right now…or make himself feel better…" she looked at him, "right?"

"I don't know," Leonard said. "When Kripke played that prank on him he wound up curled up in his room and we had to convince him to do something about it."

"Well yeah, but he can learn from mistakes, right?" Penny asked. "I mean, sometimes it takes me a few tries but…" she smiled "it also took me four years to get through high school."

Leonard laughed. "True. Like when he counted the cards in the Mystic Warlords of Ka'a tournament, and predicting where your ships are hidden in Battleship, he always does stuff to make himself feel better after someone beats him at stuff, like the cricket bet, or the helium…" he trailed off.

"Are you thinking what I think you're thinking which is what I'm thinking?" Penny asked, eyes widening as she raised a hand to point at Leonard's face.

He thought his way through her question in his head. "Do you think he'd really do that?"

"Well, he knows he'd…he's…" Penny shook her head. "It can't be."

"Try calling him again," Leonard said.

Penny fished her phone out of her pocket and dialed. "Ringing…" she waited. "Dammit, voicemail."

"Damn," Leonard said. "Well…"

"Shhh!" Penny put the phone on speaker.

"_Greetings, homo sapiens who continue to take up space in my voice mailbox. I have not answered the phone because I am too busy. You'd think that my not answering would be self-explanatory, but evidently not; so many people put in these personal recordings that they cannot come to the phone right now, and unless it is because one doesn't like you, the only logical reason for not answering is being too busy to do so. I am recording this message to give you piece of mind because yes Penny, I am actually aware that you'll worry. But please stop calling me, it's quite annoying and all I'm trying to do is get you both out of this mess._

"Rude little…" Penny said, hanging up.

"Penny," Leonard said. "We were right."

"Huh?"

"Did you listen to the background noise?" he asked.

Confused, Penny pulled the phone out and called the number again, this time tuning out Sheldon's own voice. Her eyes grew wide. "You drive."

Leonard raised his eyebrows. "All of a sudden I'm competent?"

"It's not sudden," Penny said, pulling herself up. "You know how to get there and I don't."

**I'm sure some of you might know where he went; for the rest of you, you'll find out on Saturday. :) Hope you liked it!**


	37. Needle in the Haystack

**Here's your update, guys! Happy Saturday!**

**Still sitting at a computer in the Midwest…owning nothing relevant to this fic.**

"Are we there yet?" Penny asked.

"You know," Leonard said, "one of these days I'm going to let you drive and you'll have to hear that from me so we can both practice for kids."

"I don't blame them!" she said attempting to stretch and hoping that one day they'd be able to get annoyed at persistent 'are we there yet?'s. "This car ride is so long."

"Hey," Leonard said, "we could be coming from a lot farther away."

"Are we crazy?" Penny asked. "Would Sheldon manage to travel this far?"

"He flies, he likes trains …" Leonard shrugged. "Background noises don't lie."

"Maybe he did that to confuse us," Penny said.

"Eh…" Leonard shrugged. "I don't think so. He tends to forget little details on stuff. When we got revenge on Kripke he forgot to add an abort key."

She nodded. "True. I just…I hope he's here. I worry about him."

"I know you do," Leonard said. "Hey look, a sign?" He pointed. "We're twelve miles out."

"Vegas, baby," Penny said with limited enthusiasm.

Leonard glanced at her. "You didn't want to get married while we're here, did you?"

She looked at him like the idea hadn't occurred to her. "Oh!" She cocked her head, thinking for a moment. "No, not here." She looked at him. "That okay?"

"_Totally_ fine," he said. "Just wondering…is that him?"

Penny craned her neck around and looked at the tall, lanky man walking along the side of the road. "I don't think he'd have a snake tattooed around his neck," she pointed out.

Leonard put his foot back on the gas and passed, leaving the guy in the dust. "Good eye."

"Eh, an old boyfriend of mine had the same one," Penny said.

"Maybe that was him," Leonard said, joking.

"No," Penny said. "It's impossible – that guy wasn't taller than you."

The Vegas strip wasn't as busy as it had been the first time Leonard had been there, but it was a different day of the week, a different time of the day, and a different time of the year. And it most certainly was not deserted.

"Hey, I'm gonna pull over over here," Leonard said. "Get out."

Penny cocked her head. "Why?"

"Because you need your picture under the sign."

She rolled her eyes. "We're here to look for Sheldon."

"Nothing is going to happen to him in an extra ten seconds." Leonard stopped the car. "Go."

Penny smiled, jumped out of the car, and jogged over to the sign. A man was getting his picture taken with three boys, one of which kept playing with his glasses. "Reminds me of you," she called over to Leonard, who got out of the car and fiddled with his phone. Penny stood under the sign once the family had left and spread her arms, grinning. Leonard tapped the 'take picture' button. "That may have been blurry…no, it's fine!" He waved his arm at her, signaling that the photo had been taken, and she ran back over to him and jumped in the driver's seat, sliding over to the passenger side. "Drive, Stallion."

Leonard pulled back out onto the road. "Give me the phone," Penny said, and he tossed it at her. Catching it, Penny got to pictures and smiled. "I look happy."

"No shame in that," Leonard said. "We're here. We'll find him."

"I wonder how many of these people are hookers?" Penny asked, surveying the women.

Leonard smirked but held in his laugh. "Any idea where Sheldon would be?"

"A casino," Penny said.

"Hadn't thought of that," Leonard joked. "I'm so glad you're here."

Penny smiled back, but the light mood that the two had managed to keep up while driving was starting to wear off. No matter what they decided or how much they loved each other, they couldn't shake knowing that she could be sick. They couldn't forget that Sheldon was missing. It was only for so long could they pretend that they were just two people on a road trip, and now that they reached the destination in which they'd search for their lost friend, the time that they could was quickly running out. "I'll whistle for him," Penny said, attempting to hold on to the mood for a moment longer. It didn't work. They were both silent, staring out their respective windows.

"Do we find a place to park or do we keep driving?" Leonard asked.

"Park," Penny said quickly. "Or wait, get to the end of the strip and then park. In case we see him."

"I doubt it," Leonard said, "But okay…"

"So many people," Penny said. "I mean, I know it's a city, but…" She frowned. "Is this where _Sister Act_ took place?"

"I think that was San Francisco," Leonard said.

"No, I mean the beginning and the end."

"That was Reno."

"How do you know so much about that movie?" she asked him, suddenly realizing who it was correcting her.

"Mrs. Cooper," Leonard said.

Penny nodded. "Ah."

They were silent for several minutes, staring out their windows. Then Penny spoke. "Wow," she said, "there are a lot of Terry Fator ads on top of these cars."

"He's at The Mirage," Leonard said. Penny gave him another double take. "I can read the signs, too."

"God, Sheldon. Why did you come here, of all places?" Penny mumbled under her breath, tapping her fingers against the arm rest.

"I told you, he wants to be in control of something. Winning these games, as much as he is against it, will be a way to show that he can have some sort of control, that he can memorize cards and fool people with bluffs. It'd also be extremely hard to find him in this chaos." Spotting a parking space, Leonard merged over one lane, then another, and then eased toward the spot. Another car went for it. Leonard gunned the engine and scooted in. The other car beeped its annoyance.

"You did my driving proud," Penny said.

Penny and Leonard unbuckled and leapt from the car. "Split up?" Penny asked.

"Does that ever work out well?"

"Good point. Oh!" Penny's hand went to her pocket and drew out her phone. "Hello?"

"Hey, where are you?"

Penny could barely hear the voice over the phone due to all the people on the strip. "Monte Carlo."

"Huh?"

"It's Bernadette," Penny said to Leonard, not bothering to cover the receiver. "Leonard and I are in Las Vegas looking for Sheldon."

"Huh?"

"He ran away this morning. He freaked out about the whole situation and we tracked him here. I guess he's trying to count cards to feel like he can control something…or something, Leonard explains it better, want to talk to him?"

"Why did you tell him about that? You don't even know if it's true…"

"We're not smart," Penny said. The way she said that made Leonard laugh. "Look, I called into work and hopefully we'll be back tomorrow for my appointment. But we've gotta find him."

"Okay…" Bernadette said.

Penny hung up and looked at Leonard. "Let's go."

"What did she say?"

"What do you expect?" Penny asked. "You heard my side of the conversation."

* * *

><p>The two hours before they found Sheldon felt like forever, but later both Penny and Leonard realized that they were lucky to have found a needle in the haystack that fast. It was Penny that spotted him, thirty feet ahead of them, looking awkward in the crowd as he glanced around.<p>

"Sheldon!" Leonard called, and thank Cow for his Vulcan hearing, the theoretical physicist turned and spotted them. He said something to the guard at the casino's door, then smiled and headed toward them, holding an envelope.

"Sheldon, where were you?" Penny asked, shaking her head. "We were so worried about you!"

Sheldon looked confused. "Well, I was here…as you obviously figured out."

"Why did you leave?" Leonard asked. "Isn't that against the roommate agreement?"

"Ah," Sheldon said, folding his arms. "So now you want to actually respect the roommate agreement."

Sheldon reached into his jacket and withdrew an envelope, handing it to them. "Here," he said in a voice that sounded slightly different.

Leonard opened the envelope and his jaw dropped. "How did you get this much money?"

"Even with multiple decks of cards, my eidetic memory doesn't fail me. It's really no challenge at all for someone with my brainpower." He stood there in front of them, shifting awkwardly as they looked at the envelope, unable to form a coherent sentence, wondering why the hell Sheldon had run off to acquire money he never wanted to have. Then he spoke, and their confusion was abolished. "Will that cover treatments should Penny be afflicted with a cancerous disease? Will that be able to keep you two happy?"

Leonard and Penny's eyes widened in unison, and they turned to look at each other. _How did we not realize this? _Sheldon had gone to Vegas, something he swore he'd never do, and gambled, which he swore gave him no thrill, to earn money for medical treatments should Penny actually have ovarian cancer. Penny and Leonard stared at each other in shock. It wasn't about him having some control in his life, it was exactly what he'd said on the phone. He was trying to help them.

"Oh…" Penny's jaw dropped and she looked at Leonard, who's expression matched her own. "Oh, my God…Shel…oh my…" she stepped forward and wrapped him in a hug, feeling him stiffen at first but then relent and reciprocate. "I love you, sweetie."

She turned her head and looked at Leonard, raising an eyebrow expectantly. He was still in shock, shaking his head, his eyes damper than she knew she would have liked. He'd come to the same realization as she did, at the exact same time.

Sheldon didn't run away to be selfish. And yes, maybe Penny living would be convenient for him, but neither Leonard nor Penny at that moment doubted that that wasn't the only reason that he had gone and done what he did.

_Sheldon loves us._

And that made an already emotionally exhausted Leonard tear up for what was the too many-th time that week. He knew Sheldon loved them, of course he did, but he and Penny had been spending so much time with each other, they'd forgotten that they weren't the only person who loved the other, even if it was in a different way.

"Sheldon, I just can't…I love you, buddy," he said, coming toward him and Penny. They adjusted their arms for a three person hug, standing on the crowded Vegas strip for several minutes before Sheldon's toleratometer expired and he pulled back.

* * *

><p>"Don't ever do that to us again," Penny said as they entered 4A.<p>

"One eighty six," Sheldon mumbled.

"Don't ever do that to us again!" She said. "One eighty seven!"

"Guys…" Leonard said, dropping his key in the bowl. "Everyone's fine, it's not worth it."

More of the ride home had been silence than the ride up. Sheldon had explained how he'd traveled so far on his own, Penny had lectured him for running off, and Leonard had chimed in whenever he felt the need. They'd thanked the theoretical physicist again and again for trying to help them. But then there was nothing left to talk about. The relief that the three of them felt at having the money for cancer treatments was showing them just how afraid they all were of that outcome. Leonard and Penny had cried themselves dry in the days before. Sheldon had sat quietly in the back, twiddling his thumbs. Every few minutes, Penny would tell him to never to that to them again.

Then, an hour from home, a new topic came up. "When is your ultrasound?" Sheldon asked.

"Tomorrow, hopefully," Penny said quietly. "We'll see. Knowing our luck it will get delayed."

"Okay," Sheldon said. "At least this _trip_ won't have delayed our knowledge of your reproductive health."

"Lucky we found you when we did," Penny had said. "Always let us know where you're going to be. Don't ever do that to us again."

"One eighty eight.."

Now that they were home, Sheldon raced for the bathroom to shower, leaving Penny and Leonard alone in the living room. She went over and leaned against him. "I'm so tired."

"Me too, Love Bug," he said, rubbing a hand up and down her back. "Me too." He sighed. "I think we should call Raj and Howard and let them know that we're all home."

"Did they know we left?" Penny asked.

"I called them while you were in that rest stop," Leonard said.

"Oh." She nodded. "Okay. Okay, I want to call them."

"All right," Leonard said, nodding and squeezing Penny's shoulders gently before releasing her.

She took out her phone and dropped onto the couch. "Howard!"

"Penny!" Came the engineer's voice. "Hey! Did you find the crazy nut case?"

"Yeah," Penny said. "Yeah, it's okay. We're home now." She cleared her throat. "So…so how are you guys?"

"It's definitely weird," Howard said. "But we're getting used to it. Apparantly my Russian is now 'meemo gameeshah, misto vish…something'."

"What does that mean, it sucks less?" Penny asked. "And that didn't even sound like Russian gibberish."

"Hey, I can…" Howard trailed off. "As I couldn't tell you what it meant, you're probably not that far off. So hey," he said, lowering his voice. "Leonard told us that you…might be pretty sick."

Penny glanced over at Leonard. "Yeah, yeah, I could be."

"We're going up in a week," Howard said.

"Well that's great!" Penny said, surprised that they'd switched topics so quickly but happy for them nonetheless. "I bet you're excited."

"Yeah, we are, but…" Howard sighed. "It's a six month trip. If the tests come back and there's something really wrong, where we might…not…have that long…I want you to call us because we're coming home."

"No," Penny said. "This is your chance, Howard. This is your Space Time."

"I know," Howard said. "But Raj and I aren't going up if you can't be there to welcome us home."

"No, Howard. I'd hate myself if you missed your chance for me."

"Hey, I have a soul, okay?" Howard said. "I've spent my entire life not going up into space. I'm used to doing without that."

"Okay," Penny said. "Howard, I've cried so much this past week so I'm going to let you go, but you just tell Raj that I love you guys, and I promise you we'll let you know." She hung up the phone and looked at Leonard. "No matter what happens tomorrow, I'm going to sleep so well that night."

"What night?" Leonard asked.

"Tomorrow night. It's just been so emotional, so taxing…I mean God, we'd be the most depressing television program right now, and…tomorrow we'll finally know. No matter what happens, I think knowing will give us peace of mind."

**I can't promise a time on when the next chapter will be up on Monday; I'll be back at the university. But it'll be up at some point. :) **


	38. The Last Morning

**Okay, next chapter! Now just an extra disclaimer (aside from not owning anything) is I have less than zero experience with ultrasounds. I am basing that part of this chapter off of what I've seen on TV and a Google search. If anything is wrong-and some stuff probably is-I apologize.**

The morning of the appointment, Penny and Leonard didn't shower. Penny didn't want Leonard to leave her side, and he wasn't about to. Although he'd be mere feet away, Leonard knew that Penny would feel alone, and knowing that she felt that way didn't make him want to get out of her sight. He suggested they shower together, but she shook her head. She wasn't feeling up to the soap fights they usually got into. And he wasn't up to her trying to seduce him in there.

He wasn't hungry, but he still ate that morning, trying to down his granola bar quickly so Penny wouldn't have to see him eating when she couldn't keep anything down, but at the same time slowly so he wouldn't draw attention to the fact that he was eating. It was an impossible balance that only worked out once Penny began chugging the water that she needed to consume for the ultrasound.

After he ate they went back to bed, Leonard lying on his back and Penny on her side next to him. Her hands found his right and her fingers curled around his own, squeezing so hard it hurt, but Leonard wasn't about to react. He was just as afraid. His left arm was around her, his hand resting on her left shoulder and toying with her hair. His hand slid down to rest on her stomach against her skin, knowing what awful things could be going on just inches beneath his hand. Her body on the outside was young, beautiful, and strong, but it could be failing her from within, so close to his hand, and the fact that six PhDs in their group could do nothing about that made him sick.

This was the last morning. The last morning of what, he wasn't completely sure. Of course it was the last morning of not knowing, but was it the last morning of not knowing that Penny was dying, or the last morning of not knowing that Penny was okay? Leonard was anxious for the appointment; by this time he just wanted to know, for better or for worse.

The woman in his arms-the woman he loved-moved slightly, shifting her position and tucking her head into the crook of his neck. _Yes,_ Leonard thought. _Not knowing is worse. Not knowing how much more time you'll be allowed to be with her._ He was glad that she'd moved her head off of his chest; it was aching enough without the added weight.

* * *

><p>At least the waiting room had an honest name, Penny thought as Leonard led her to one of the metal benches. Waiting Room. It told you for sure and without beating around the bush what you'd be doing while in it. It was actually a bit spoilerish, she thought in annoyance.<p>

Leonard sat down first and gently tugged her down next to him. Once again her hands went for his, holding them tightly. He was scared, and Penny knew it, and she loved him even more for trying to hide it.

But if "do or do not, there is no try," was true, then he hadn't been hiding it. Ever since the possibility of cancer was first mentioned, Penny had noticed a change in Leonard. While he'd always been willing to do things for her, and while he'd always been loving, he managed to step it up. They hadn't made love since the nigh Penny had hurt, but that certainly didn't mean they weren't intimate. They slept in each other's arms even on hot and humid nights, and her hand was rarely not in his. In a way, they'd fallen back into that early relationship stage, where nothing could keep them apart. She'd done her weekly coffee slash tepid water outing with the girls and had missed him even for two hours. Even things that usually got him angry-even mock anger-didn't seem to bother him. Then the previous night they'd clung to each other, almost in desperation, and he told her again how much he loved her.

The night on the roof, however, had been the worst. They'd been trying to hide their fear from each other and they'd broken at the same time. She could feel the pain radiating from him, and she knew that it was coming from her, too. All they could do was cling to each other and cry, taking solace in the fact that they knew how the other felt. It was easily their lowest moment, but at the same time one that Penny treasured, when they were, without reserve, honest with each other and open about how deep their love ran. No stone had been left unturned that night. A good relationship didn't need that kind of night often, but every once in a while it was nice to be reassured of what you knew you shared with someone.

But eh, who cared about 'do or do not, there is no try,' anyway? She smiled to herself. Only a sith dealt in absolutes anyway.

They both jumped when Penny's name was called.

Penny stood up. "Hey, come here," she said to Leonard. He stood, and she leaned over to give him a quick kiss before taking his hand and following the nurse. "Here we go," said the woman whose name tag said "Amanda." "Right in here."

The ultrasound room had the table for the procedure as well as all the equipment; Penny and Leonard sat on the table next to one another. "Don't touch anything, please," Amanda said, smiling. "Dr. Glass and Ned will be right with you."

"Well, here we are," Leonard said, sighing.

Penny nodded, leaning over to rest her head on his shoulder. He angled his head so it rested on hers. "I love you," she said, letting go of one of his hands to slide her arm over his stomach.

"You, too."

"More waiting," Penny said. "God, I hate waiting." She sat up. "I guess I shouldn't be practically on top of you when the doctor comes in," she said, smiling.

"It's okay," Leonard whispered, and as soon as the words were out of his mouth a small bit of his nerves evaporated. For a moment, he felt like everything _was_ okay, like there was no longer any doubt, and that Penny was fine. He didn't allow himself to tell her that, though; it would be even harder to whiplash from his sudden, desperate hope to a death sentence should it come.

Just then there was a knock at the door, and then Dr. Glass entered, carrying papers and smiling. "Good morning, Penny. Good morning, Doctor Hofstadter."

"Morning," Penny mumbled, and Leonard echoed the greeting.

"This is Ned Ransom," said Glass, motioning to the man standing behind him. "He's the technician who will be doing your ultrasound. After that, the official reading will be done with me."

Penny and Leonard nodded. Nothing they didn't already know; they'd read up on this before hand.

"Okay, well, are you ready?" asked Random, clapping his hands together and looking over at them.

Penny and Leonard glanced at each other. "Yes, I guess so."

* * *

><p>"I've never seen my reproductive system like this before," Penny said, looking over at the screen.<p>

"You mean in gray scale?" Leonard asked, squeezing her hand.

She rolled her eyes at him. "Is that my uterus?" she asked Ransom.

"Yes." He looked amused.

Leonard just looked confused. "How can you tell?"

Ransom cleared his throat. "This right here is one of your ovaries, can you see that?"

"No." Leonard squinted. "Women are complicated in ways beyond the stereotype."

"What's wrong with it?" said Penny glancing from Leonard to Ransom and back.

"This one appears to be perfectly healthy," Ransom said, shifting the camera slightly to see the other end. "There are no abnormalities, no discolorations, no growths. Now we're going to check the other one."

Penny glanced up at Leonard and he smiled down at her, both of them shifting their eyes instantly back up to the screen when Ransom said "Hmmm."

"What?" Penny asked. Leonard felt her hand grip his more tightly.

Ransom shifted the camera again, centering a small black splotch. "Do you see this here?"

"Uh-huh..." Penny said.

"Well," said Ransom, "That is a cyst."

Penny cringed. "Ugh." She glanced at Leonard.

"A cyst, as I'm sure you know, is a fluid filled sac that can form pretty much anywhere on the body. There are a lot of types, follicle, endometriomas, dermoid, and several others."

"What kind of cyst is it?" Penny said, glancing at Leonard. "Did we look at this possibility."

"I think we skimmed over it," Leonard said, "but I don't remember."

"Well," said Ransom, "considering that there's only one, and where it is located, I'm guessing follicle. It means that the sac didn't open up and release your ovum, and it enlarges because of that. Occasionally, it can twist and cause pain, such as during sex."

Penny nodded, squeezing Leonard's hand for reassurance. He squeezed back. "How do we get rid of it?" she asked.

"Well, they usually go away on their own in four to twelve weeks," said Ransom, "so this one appears pretty small, and on the waning side of its life, so I'd expect it to be gone in ten days or so all on its own. However, that is just what I am gathering considering how long you've been having symptoms. I am sure that Dr. Glass will recommend you come back in in a month to make sure nothing else has popped up. But for now, it doesn't appear that any more are forming, notice how the rest of the ovary is clear?"

"Good ovaries," Penny said, glancing down the cot at her stomach.

Ransom shifted the camera around a bit, getting a line of sight on the rest of Penny's reproductive tract. "I really don't see anything else," he said. "There may have been other cysts, no way of really knowing otherwise, but if there were, they're gone now. What I can say for certain is there is no cancer in your reproductive system."

He continued on, talking about meeting with Dr. Glass to hear more about her health, but Penny didn't really hear any of the words that Ransom was saying. She didn't hear a single thing after the words _no cancer._

* * *

><p>"So is this why we haven't been able to get pregnant?" Leonard asked.<p>

"Unfortunately, a single cyst of this type will not cause infertility," Glass said, resting his left arm on the desk. "But it is a very likely explanation for the pain, and could very well be the cause of her nausea as well."

"So why can't I get pregnant?" Penny asked, fearing the answer.

Ransom shrugged. "There is nothing on this scan that suggests you should be having a problem. Have you been tested, Dr. Hofstadter?"

He nodded. "Yes. Nothing wrong with me."

"So what," Penny said, "I'm just infertile with no explanation?"

"Unexplained infertility does happen," said Ransom, "but it could just be taking you a while to get pregnant. My no means stop trying."

"Okay…" Penny shifted her weight. "So what do I do about the cyst?"

"Well, we're going to have you come back in for that second scan to make sure that it is in fact gone, but hopefully it is and you won't have any more pain. You said it was just the one time?"

"Yes," Penny said, "but we haven't slept together since then."

"Okay," said the doctor, "now I know for some people a doctor's advice is a bit of a turn off, and I know it might be scaring you guys right now, but the only way to know if the pain is gone is to try sleeping together again."

"Well, we'll be taking care of t_hat_ soon then!" Penny said, slapping Leonard on the chest.

He put his hand where she had hit him. "Ow…"

* * *

><p>After leaving the doctor's Penny and Leonard made it all the way out to the car before she whirled around and jumped up, hooking her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck as she pressed her mouth to his and felt him return the kiss. His arms came tightly around her and squeezed as he rocked from side to side. "You're okay," he whispered, their lips barely an inch apart.<p>

"Mmmhmm!" she whimpered excitedly. "Oh God." They pulled back and looked at each other. "This…" she said, grinning and sliding her hands down to his chest, "This is us for a long time."

"I know," he said, wiggling his nose slightly to straighten out his glasses. He surveyed her radiant face. "Oh my God, you look beautiful today."

"Aw," she said sweetly, leaning in and kissing him again. "I love you so much."

"I love you too," he said. "And now…" he trailed off, not really needing to say more. Instead, he spun around in a circle, loving the giggle that the action got out of Penny.

"Okay," She said once he was standing still again, grinning. "We're excited, we're happy, we're good." She slid down onto the pavement and tapped his chest lightly with her hands. "Now we're going to behave like normal people again."

He laughed. "Sounds good to me."

"Can I drive?" She asked.

"That's why you're so bound and determined to get back to normal," Leonard said as more of a statement than a question. She gave a little shrug. "Okay," he said. "But we're trying to get pregnant, so don't kill us."

She laughed. "Oh! Wait, no, you call."

Leonard frowned. "Call?"

"What?" Penny frowned as well. "Oh, I mean drive. You drive. I want to call Amy and Bernadette. And Howard. And my parents."

"You told them?"

Penny paused. "Oh, right. I didn't. But hey, I can call them anyway, right? I mean, it's always gotta be good when someone tells you they don't have cancer."

Leonard burst out laughing. "That's very true."

Penny jumped into the car and grinned at Leonard as she dialed. Leonard heard the faint "hello?" as the microbiologist answered.

"I'm okay!" Penny shrieked into the phone.

"Oh my gosh!" Bernadette squealed. Penny could tell by the lack of a decrease in volume that Bernadette did not cover the receiver when she said, "Amy, she's okay!"

"Knew you'd be, Bestie!" Amy called into the phone. "Actually, no, I didn't. The odds were in your favor but as there is no such thing as psychics it was impossible for me to be sure until you got the results of your tests. But I _hoped_ very much that this would be the outcome. For sure," she added, and Penny grinned at her attempt to sound modern.

"That is such great news," Bernadette said. "Oh I'm so happy for you guys! Can we come over later?"

"I'll call you this evening," Penny said. "Leonard and I going to spend some time together today and then maybe the five of us tonight?"

"Sounds good," Bernadette said. "Have you called Raj and Howard?"

"Not yet," Penny said. "I was going to call them right now. What's the time difference again?"

"Almost twelve hours."

Penny glanced at the time on the car radio. "They're probably asleep by now."

"Just leave them a message," Bernadette said. "Howard called me early this morning. They're really worried about you."

"Okay. I'll do that right now." Penny hung up and gave Leonard a smile as she dialed Howard's cell phone. "Ugh, answering machine." She looked annoyed for a split second, and then her face brightened. "I'll call Raj!" She knew that she sounded overly enthusiastic, but she didn't care. She got her life back today.

Raj didn't pick up either. "Hey, Raj," she said in response to the beep, "it's Penny. I'm just calling to let you know that I am fine. They don't know why we can't get pregnant, but neither of us is sick, dying, or have any sort of…thing at all. I'm fine, you guys have a great rest of training, and make sure you call us before you go up into space. I love you guys."

She hung up and dropped her phone in her lap. "Well," she said, glancing over at Leonard and smiling. "That's that."

**So there you guys go. Penny is fine. :) I hope that was what you all were wanting; I always had this solution planned, so don't be concerned that I am the type of writer who opts out once they realize what they might have gotten into. There will still be more issues to work through, but the worst is arguably over.**


	39. You and Me

**New update! Sorry it's later in the day; I've been busy! :D**

**I still don't own anything. But ya know, it's okay.**

It wasn't until they got back to the apartment building that the high wore off and was replaced by a jolt of realism. And bitterness.

"If it's meant to happen," Penny said sullenly as they climbed the stairs, fingers still linked lazily together as she fumed over the doctor's parting words to them. "I'll get pregnant _if it's meant to happen. _Which is a way of saying, 'you're not gonna get pregnant but I'll say 'maybe' just in case a miracle happens so I won't look like an idiot.'"

Leonard gave her a sympathetic smile. Just ten minutes ago she was still walking on air over the good news part of the day. But upon parking and entering the apartment building she had fallen silent. Now that she knew that she was going to live for a long time, Penny had sunk right back into the depression of being unable to get pregnant.

"How about we just be happy that you're okay," Leonard said. "We've been so fearful, and today we were told that you're not sick, you're not dying, and that means our biggest fear is no longer real."

She looked at him and smiled. "I know. But…" They reached the fourth floor, and Penny leaned against the door to her apartment. "It's like…it's just…we didn't know what was going to happen with me, and now we do so…so now of course I'm going to worry about this! I want this, and what if it never happens? What if there's never a person in this world that's a combination of us? Half Leonard, and half Penny, and here in this world because of us? Wouldn't that be the most wonderful person in the world?" Her voice grew quiet, and her hands dropped to her sides. "What if there's never a little baby, a person in this world that's you and me?" She shook her head. "I wish there was something really wrong, and something they could fix, of course, so there'd at least be an explanation…but what if it really never happens?"

Leonard stepped closer, so their bodies nearly touched, and he took her hands. "I'll still love you. We'll always be You and Me. And we have time to be that now."

"I don't want to be barren," Penny said quietly.

"Look," Leonard said. "We have all the time in the world to try, and you know, sometimes it just takes a while. People have tried longer than we have before, and we put it on hold recently, so that time doesn't even count. It's _going_ to happen. Okay? You and Me."

She loved the way his eyes looked whenever he said that, and his face was too close to hers for her not to kiss him. After a moment, she tipped her head so her forehead was against his. "Thank you," she whispered.

"So…what do we do now?"

"We keep trying," Penny said. She kissed him again, pushing herself up against him and sliding her hands through his hair.

Leonard kissed her a moment more, and then pulled back. "Look, I know nothing is wrong with you, but…that night you were hurting?" He shook his head slightly. "I just…I feel so guilty about that."

"It's _not_ your fault," she said.

He frowned. "I know, but…"

"Leonard, we have to try again sometime," Penny said. "Doctor's orders."

"But what if you start hurting again?"

Penny smiled at him. "That could have been a onetime thing," she pointed out. "That happened with bad timing and it's scaring you, I know. But it's okay. We haven't tried since. Let's just see how it goes."

He nodded slowly. "Okay," he said, still feeling unsure.

"But you have to promise me one thing," Penny said.

"What?"

"No asking me if I'm okay every three seconds, all right? That_ totally_ kills the mood. If we have to stop, I'll let you know."

He nodded. "Promise."

She smiled up at him, biting her lower lip seductively, and kissed him again. When they broke apart, she cocked her head and opened her apartment door. "Come on, sweetie," she said, smiling, "it's going to be okay."

* * *

><p>"Well, that…" Penny said, taking in a deep breath and letting it out in a sigh. "Was definitely okay."<p>

"I'm pretty sure the entire building knows," Leonard said fondly, repositioning and curling his arms around her.

"Oh God," Penny said, putting a hand to her mouth. "Was I that bad?" Leonard smirked as he watched her turn pink. "Oh…" She squeezed her eyes shut in embarrassment and buried her face in his shoulder, stretching out alongside him and wondering what Sheldon and Mrs. Gunderson would have to say this time.

He tipped his head down to kiss the top of her head. "It's okay, sweetie," he said affectionately, smiling as he felt her cuddle closer. "It's more than okay." He smirked. "I'm sure they were actually amused when you blurted out 'okay, then!'

"Just so you know," she said, "as amazing as that was, it would have been better for both of us if you hadn't started laughing at that comment. It kind of kills the mood."

"You started laughing too," he said, smiling.

"I could not help it," she said indignantly. "Your face, trying not to laugh and failing so badly at that? Hilarious."

"Well, good to know we can still amuse each other," he said, grinning. He moved closer and kissed her forehead. "And that we proved that couples can sleep together successfully even after falling into a laughing fit right in the middle of it."

"Mmm," Penny said, opening her eyes briefly before closing them again and nuzzling his neck. "You know what?" She whispered.

"Hmmm," Leonard said. "What?"

"I could be pregnant right now." She lifted her head. "You know? I could. Optimism!"

"You could be," Leonard said, smiling up at her. "You really could be."

She grinned and lowered her head to kiss him again, putting her hand on the side of his face and feeling his hand, under the covers, rest on her bare back. "Aw," she said as they broke apart, cuddling up to him and pushing her nose back into his neck. "Oh Leonard," she said happily. "We're back to normal."

**Felt like we needed a bit of a feel good ending to this chapter. Please review, and you'll get another chapter on the sixteenth. :)**


	40. Time is of the Essence

**Happy Friday, everyone! Though it's Saturday already for some of you. :P Here's the next chapter.**

**Still don't own squat.**

"Back to normal" quickly became "back to routine." Penny returned to her normal work schedule and weekly outings with Bernadette and Amy. Leonard began working with the lasers again, and Penny fell back into her old job as Sheldon's chauffer when Leonard worked late on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

After three weeks, Leonard rushed home to Penny's apartment. "Did you do it yet?"

"Just did," Penny said, dropping onto the couch and picking the pregnancy test up off the coffee table.

"Ah!" Leonard said.

Penny looked panicked. "What?"

Leonard flew across the room and onto the couch. "Don't shake it!"

She gave him an amused look. "Relax," she said, trying not to laugh. "I lifted it, that's all!"

"Okay," Leonard said, taking her hand. "Are you ready to look?"

She nodded quickly, leaning over to kiss him quickly on the cheek. "Hold my hand."

He took her hand in both of his and squeezed it as she turned the stick over. They looked down at the test, straining their eyes to see it before Penny realized she could just draw it closer to their faces. Leonard registered the results first and glanced at Penny just in time to see her face fall. "Negative," she said, spiking the test down. It ricochet off the table and ended up face down in front of the television set. She let out a deep sigh and put her face in her hands. "Story of our freaking lives."

"Hey," Leonard said, putting a hand on her knee. "At least you're healthy."

"Yeah," she said flatly. "Leonard?"

"What?" he asked her, tipping his head to try and see her face; it didn't work, her hair was hanging down and it blocked her eyes. "What?"

"What's going to happen to us?" she asked, still not looking at him.

"What do you mean?" he asked. He raised his hand from her knee to her left shoulder blade, resting it there, her words making him uncertain. He couldn't move his hand in that reassuring up and down motion on her back; he didn't know what he needed to reassure her of, not just yet.

"First…" she trailed off, and then she finally looked at him. He was anxious to hear what she had to say, but he felt better being able to see her eyes. They could read each other's eyes; years of living in close proximity had opened their eyes to each other, and he could see that she was looking to him; she wasn't angry. "Is sex going to become a chore again?"

"You mean, 'we want a family so this is what we have to do'?" Leonard asked her. She nodded, and he let out his own deep sigh, moving his hand from her shoulder to his lap. "Look," he said, "it's not going to happen again, okay? We're past that. It's not going to drive us apart. We can't let ourselves get depressed over one test, okay?" He wanted to use the word _bipolar _again, but he didn't dare.

"I mean, before it was just…" she trailed off again, motioning back and forth between them. "You and me, and now…" she shook her head. "We were so close when we were afraid that I was dying, and now have we just…have we lost the passion?" she asked him. "Just being in the same room with you used to be…you'd be a half an hour late coming home and that extra time alone made me want to rip your clothes off as soon as you walked through the door. Have we lost that connection after only a year?"

"One test changed everything?" Leonard said. "Lately we've seemed pretty…connectified."

"Okay, you don't have to make up a word to make me feel better," Penny said. She sighed. "I'm sorry, this is so redundant, just forget I said anything."

"No," Leonard said, scooting a little bit closer and taking both of her hands. "It's okay. We're allowed to be frustrated."

"I'm so moody." She dropped her head.

"No, baby, of course not. Hey," he said when she wouldn't look at him. "Penny." She turned her head back to him. "You're stressed, we both are. And yeah…we have another negative test. It doesn't mean that we're going to fall into a funk again. It's normal for some couples trying to conceive to stop enjoying sex. So we, worst case scenario, are a number in that statistic. It doesn't mean that we'd love each other less."

"We can't count on a cancer scare to bring us closer every time we start to drift away, and I don't want it to have to come to that." He heard her voice crack on the word 'drift' and by the end of the sentence she was openly crying. As the tears found their way out of her eyes and down her cheeks, she leaned over to rest her head on Leonard's shoulder.

That one motion took all of Leonard's worry away. He'd be lying if he told her that once their "you're alive" high had wore off, working on getting pregnant again was making the sex feel a little bit like work. But he did reading, he knew his stuff, and he wasn't worried about their relationship. They'd been through too much together for another mini funk – although he wouldn't even call this that, not yet – to do any damage. But while he knew that their lack of enjoyable, carefree sex the past week wasn't nearly enough to drive him away from her, but he didn't know how much the lessened intimacy was affecting Penny, but he supposed that she would have suddenly expected everything to be flawless now that she wasn't sick. It was just like her to expect that, just as it was like her to overreact now. But there wasn't a problem this time, Leonard knew, because when she felt the tears come, she didn't put her head in her hands. She didn't lean on the arm of the couch or curl up on the far seat cushion. She leaned against Leonard, still holding both of his hands.

He couldn't see her eyes, but he knew that plenty of fire was still there. "Penny," he said, squeezing both of her hands. "We don't need a scare like that. And think about it, it's not that bad this time, we're just getting back on a schedule with everything. It's one more negative test. So we keep trying! It's no different than it's always been, okay? We just need to accept that we're growing up, moving to another, _huge_ stage in our life, and we're not going to want to rip each other's clothes off every day. It scared me the first time you tried that anyway."

She looked up at him and giggled. "The look on your face was classic."

"I mean, I had such a long day and work and I walk in the door and there you are and…" he shook his head, grinning. "Freaked me out for a second there."

"Well, at least you didn't let it affect your moves." She smiled at him, sitting up and putting her arm around his neck. "Even when I'm feeling down, you just come along and remind me why I fell in love with you." She kissed his cheek, still smiling. Then she tipped her head to the side. "Do you have protection on you?"

"Not currently…" he said, furrowing his brow.

Penny giggled. "No, I mean do you have anything in your apartment?"

"I think so," he said. "Why?"

"If we're using protection, then we're not doing it to have a baby, right?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.

Leonard got what she was getting at. "_Oh_!" He stood up, letting go of her hands. "I'll be right back." He rushed for the door and then turned. "But…but what if this time it would work, and we missed the chance because of…"

"Oooh," Penny said, standing up and walking slowly toward him. "Are you saying that this could be a small, small window of opportunity and we'd better make the best of it?"

Leonard recognized her look and her walk, and he smiled mischievously. "I think this might be…crucial…"

"So," Penny said, pointing her right foot and dragging the toe against the floor, "it kinda has to be now…"

Leonard glanced at his watch. "Time doesn't slow down…"

Penny jumped her last couple of steps and pulled him to her, smashing her lips on his and forcing her tongue into his mouth. She felt his hands rest on her waist and pulled back slightly. "We gotta hurry," she said. "I could get pregnant right now…" she pulled him over to the couch and forced him down.

"Well," Leonard said, shifting his weight so his head could rest on the arm of the couch. "We know how to get you turned on, now don't we?" He asked, curling his hands around the bottom of her shirt. "Pretend that we need to do it now or we'll never get pregnant."

"Shhh," she said, sliding her hands into his jacket. "Don't you talk. We're on a time crunch, here!" She shifted her weight so she had one leg on either side of him and kissed him again, moving her hands up from his jacket to his neck. "King of Foreplay, we are in too much of a rush to explore the kingdom," she said, "So just send your guys into battle!"

Leonard barely had time to smile before her mouth was once again mashed against his. So he smiled to himself again. He had a feeling that the time crunch scenario would work for them as long as it took.

However, her little kingdom metaphor was very likely to just get him laughing again. Luckily, she didn't mind that either.

**Hope you enjoyed it! (I know, it must be frustrating that she's not pregnant yet, but remember it's frustrating for them, too, and it would be a little too convenient for them to conceive right after they got their tests back.)**


	41. Some Kind of Movie

**Sorry this is so late, guys, I swear I just remembered it was an update day! Here's the next chapter.**

**And I still own nothing.**

"I am never going to a sad movie with you two again," Penny announced as the trio exited the theater.

"At least I wasn't sobbing from the opening credits because the director's last name was Howard," Amy said.

"At least you didn't lecture me on chemical reactions in the brain when you miss someone!" Bernadette said, rubbing her eyes.

"Well, we know who was talking the entire time," said a girl in a loud voice as Penny, Amy and Bernadette passed.

"I'm sorry," Bernadette said. "I just…" she dropped down onto a bench below a promotional poster involving a dragon holding a man with dreadlocks in it's mouth. "I miss Howard, I'm sorry."

"Aw, don't be sorry, sweetie," Penny said, sitting down next to the microbiologist and putting her arm around her shoulders. "He's your husband, and he's gone a lot. That's totally understandable. Don't!" she said as a warning to Amy when the neurobiologist opened her mouth. "That's not going to help. Bernadette," Penny begged. "Listen to me, I know what it's like to miss someone. It's hard. But just remember how much he loves you and how happy he is doing this."

"I do," she said. "I do, I'm sorry. I just…I wasn't expecting to see his name on the screen."

"Tell you what?" Penny said. "We don't go to sad movies for a while. There's a completely mindless comedy coming out on Friday. We'll go and see that."

"Oh boy, cheap humor," Amy said, _tsk_ing. "I'm not sure that's the best way to go either..."

Bernadette and Penny turned their heads to look at her at the same time. "Sorry," Amy said, clearing her throat. "We hang out so much you forget I often don't know what to say in situations like this."

Bernadette giggled. "Is it weird that that makes you endearing?"

Amy looked flattered, a small smile forming on her face. "Really?" She put a hand to her mouth.

"Oh, I love you guys," Bernadette said, leaning into Penny and stretching her arm around to reach Amy, too. "Although yeah, cheap humor might just remind me of Howard's pickup lines."

Amy grinned and scooted closer, adding her own arm to the embrace. "So is our little spat over with?" She asked.

"Yeah," Penny said. "We're good. Aren't we?"

"Never better," Bernadette agreed, sighing.

"No!" Penny said sharply. "No sighing! No more being sad! You can be sad tonight when you're at your mother – in – law's. Right now you're with us and when you're with us you're happy!"

Bernadette laughed, brushing the last few tears from her eyes. "Right. I can't spend time with my husband. But I'm happy!"

"I can't get pregnant even in the two months it's been since I found out I wasn't dying," Penny said. "But I'm happy too." She half – heartedly punched the air. "Woo."

"I can't think of anything wrong with my life," Amy said. "Which makes me sad that I can't participate."

"But you're with us," Penny reminded her. "So…happy, right?"

Amy thought for a moment, and then smiled. "Yes. Yes, exactly. Happy."

"Well," Penny said, "today told us one thing."

"What's that?" Bernadette asked.

"Next week, we're seeing The Lorax."

* * *

><p>"Well," Penny said to Leonard coming out of the bathroom and pulling her hair back. "We've been trying for almost a year now."<p>

He looked up from the autobiography he was reading. "It's been about that, hasn't it?" He nodded, thinking. "A little more."

"A little," she said. "And you know what?"

"Hmmm?" he asked, smiling at her.

"The test last week being negative? You notice how I didn't cry?"

"Yeah," he said, closing his book. "I did."

"Well, I didn't cry because I've finally made peace." Penny came over and moved the covers off of Leonard, straddling him and lowering her upper body onto his stomach. She put her hands on his chest and smiled down. "We're still trying to have a baby. But we're healthy and we've got great friends and we love each other and…" she smiled. "And it's like I'm finally okay with wherever our life takes us." She lowered her head to rub her nose against his, and then lifted her face to see his own better. "And I promise I'm not going to freak out on you anymore."

He slid his hands up to her elbows and smiled affectionately. "You freak out the way you do because you care so much. Just like when Sheldon gets upset if we misquote movies."

Penny laughed. "I love how that's the Sheldon equivalent of this." She shifted her weight so she could lean down and kiss him. "Hmmm," she said, smiling warmly. "So, you wanna keep trying for that family or smile at me like a lovesick puppy dog?"

"Is reading my book an option?" Leonard asked, acting as if that was what he actually wanted to do. Penny grabbed the pillow from the other side of the bed and swatted him. "Okay, okay!" He said, pretending that he was exasperated. "We'll have sex if it means that much to you." He reached up and traced her collarbone with the back of his hand, running it up the side of her jaw to flip it over and draw her face down near him again.

It was a slightly odd motion, but Penny didn't care. "Ooh," she said, giggling slightly. "Going sa – low tonight, huh?" She shifted her weight and lowered her lips to meet his own once again.

"Maybe that's the key," Leonard said, tugging her closer.

"Then why didn't it work before?" She whispered. "Wait, never mind." She kissed him again, on the lips, then on the cheek, then on the neck. "We're not talking right now."

"Sounds good to me," he said, rolling them over so she was beneath him.

Penny blinked in surprise. "You're going to do all the work?" She asked him teasingly. "I was offering!"

"Hey," he said, "when we get pregnant you're going to be doing a hell of a lot more work than this is. And it's not going to be as enjoyable."

Penny smiled fondly at him, reaching up to remove his glasses. "I love the way you think, Dr. Hofstadter."

"Shhh," he said, kissing her throat. "I thought we weren't going to talk."

"Mmm," she said, closing her eyes and wrapping her arms around his neck. "That's right."

**Again, sorry for the late night update! :)**


	42. Flourish

**Chapter forty two! In which the story takes a bit of a turn. Apologies to anyone who reviewed that I didn't get back to; the site being weird for a couple of days screwed up my review reply routine; should be back to normal now. :)**

**Oh yeah, and I still don't own anything. In the words of Kunal, "balls."**

"Sheldon," Bernadette said as they entered the apartment building along with Leonard and Stuart, "It's going to be okay."

"No it isn't," Sheldon, Stuart, and Leonard said at the same time, the latter two in a flat tone. The Homo Novus looked at the two newcomers to the Wii bowling team as if he had lost his mind. "How is it going to be okay? It's not. That's why I have to order a new one!"

"No wonder Gilda didn't want to come with us today," Bernadette said to Stuart, who smirked.

"Sheldon," said Leonard with annoyance, "it's going to be fine. You'll get a new DVD, and it won't skip over the part where Darth Vader says 'I am your father.' There's no use in making a big deal over it."

Sheldon looked as if he was about to speak, and then shook his head. "I'm not even going to bother with you."

"Thank you," he muttered, opening the mailbox and withdrawing several envelopes. "It's enough that we spent two hours lamenting over most people quoting 'Luke, I am your father,' instead of 'no, I am you father', which I find just as annoying as you, but…" he trailed off to sort through the mail. "Sheldon, Sheldon," he said, handing his roommate's mail over. "Bill, Sheldon, bi…what's this?" He turned the blank package over. "No return address…" he set the mail down and opened it.

"Are you going to be on some sort of reality television show?" Sheldon asked. "Leonard, I have to say, I'm disappointed in you."

Leonard wasn't listening. "Oh, my God." He looked at the other three, his expression impossible to describe. "Oh, my God!" He spun around and rushed for the stairs, his jacket hitting the rest of the mail and sending it to the floor.

Sheldon stared after him, then looked at Bernadette. "Pick that up."

"Why?"

"Sheldon, that's sexist," Stuart said.

Sheldon looked confused. "Her hands are closest to the floor. That's not sexist at all."

* * *

><p>Penny sat on the couch, her legs tucked up underneath her, her hand shaking ever so slightly. It was ten minutes past when he said he'd be home; he'd be here any minute. She cocked her head, staying still, wondering why the heck she was so anxious but understanding why at the same time, and listening for footsteps on the stairway. When she heard them, she straightened up, watching the door.<p>

He flung it open, stopping just inside, eyes meeting hers, hands still clutching the pregnancy test. Peny could see the plus sign on the screen from where she sat. Smiles overtook both of their faces as she slowly rose to her feet.

"Oh, my…Penny…" Leonard's smile became a grin, and he and Penny moved toward each other at the same time. They met in front of her coffee table, and she threw her arms around his neck, feeling his arms curl around her and hold her close. "Oh, my God," he said, over and over.

She leaned back to look at him, her hands coming up to run through his hair. "We did it." She pressed her lips to his; enjoying the closeness of the man she loved. "We're going to have a family," she said in between kisses, closing her eyes. "I took three. They were all positive." She buried her head in the crook of Leonard's neck and he tightened his hold on her.

After a long moment, Leonard pulled away and dropped to the ground, slowly sliding up Penny's shirt and planting a kiss on her stomach. Penny slid her hands through his hair and closed her eyes as he looked up at her. "I love you," he said, lifting his head and sliding his arms around her legs, hugging them. "So…" his voice cracked. "So much."

Penny felt the corners of her eyes get hot; this time the tears were happy. "I…" she stopped and shook her head as she tried to speak without her voice cracking, dropping to her knees next to him and grabbing both of his hands. "I…" She shook her head as they grinned at each other. "I am _so_ happy."

Leonard smiled, pulling her close. "So am I."

They stayed that way for several minutes, enjoying the closeness while remaining in the floor. "Can't we just stay like this?" She murmured. "Just like this."

She felt Leonard start to sway from side to side, his hand sliding up slightly higher on her back, then back down again as they gently rocked, both knowing their knees would hurt like hell later but not really caring at that exact moment. "I just can't believe…" his voice cracked again. He pulled back and looked back down at her midsection. "There's…" he put his finger just above her belly button. "There's a baby in there."

Penny nodded, her eyes welling up even more. "Yes," she confirmed, even though both of them knew that good and well already. "Yes, there is." She grinned at him through her tears, and then started laughing. "Oh God, I'm scared now," she said, telling the truth but still being happy enough to laugh. Leonard laughed too, and then took her face in his hands and kissed her forehead. Penny felt her eyes welling up. She felt in that moment as if she'd never been loved like this before. Maybe it was just the joy in knowing that after over a year of frustration, she was finally pregnant.

_Knock knock knock_ "Leonard and Penny?"

_Knock knock knock_ "Leonard and Penny?"

_Knock knock knock_ "Leonard and Penny?"

Leonard craned his head around to look at the door. "Come in!"

"No, wait!" Penny yelled. "Don't come in!"

"Why not?" she heard Sheldon say.

"I'm…naked!" she called back.

Leonard and Penny laughed as they heard Sheldon's reaction to her statement. "Don't open that door! Anyone! _Anyone!_"

"What's going on?" Leonard asked.

"I'm still naked!" Penny said. "Yep, just waltzing around the apartment…"

"What are you doing?" Leonard asked, incredulous.

Penny put a finger to her lips and went to the door, pressing her ear against it. "Vulcan hearing," she said. "But he's singing the element song."

"I can hear that," Leonard said. "But…oh, he's trying to drown us out. I get it."

"We can't tell them yet," she said.

He cocked his head. "Why not?"

"What if something goes wrong? We have to wait. So much can happen in these first few months. Naked!" She shouted the last word just to make sure that Sheldon hadn't given up trying to not hear their conversation.

Leonard froze, not realizing until then just how much things could go wrong. Just because the test had been positive didn't mean that everything was okay. "How long?"

"Just…just a little bit. Please."

He nodded. "Okay."

"Okay you guys," Penny said. "No one's naked. You can come in now."

The door swung open and Sheldon, Bernadette, and Stuart peered hesitantly in. "What's going on?" Bernadette asked, looking from Leonard to Penny and back again. "What's wrong?"

Leonard removed his hands from Penny's face and stood up, grabbing her hands so she could rise up next to him. "Nothing's wrong," Penny said, wiping her eyes and smiling at Leonard. She looked back at the trio in the doorway. "I just had to get dressed." She shrugged. "You know. Me being naked and all."

"Penny," Sheldon said. "Nobody cares."

"What was in the envelope?" Stuart asked.

"Long story," Leonard said. "A really long story."

**"Don't come in, I'm naked!" was partially a Friends reference and partially a conversation that happens a lot here at school with my suite mates and I. Don't ask. :P Hope you liked it-forty two chapters and like 75,000 words in, Penny is finally pregnant! And now we're in to the second half of the fic. :)**


	43. The Equine Paradigm

**O-kay, everyone, new chapter! :D Getting this up before I take my pre – Hunger Games power nap.**

**Anyone want to guess what I own? Nothing? YOU WIN! Your prize? This chapter. Enjoy!**

"I can enjoy this a lot more now that we're not doing it to build a baby," Penny said that night, sighing and pulling a strand of hair away from her eyes. She took several deep breaths, rolling on her side to rest a hand on Leonard's chest. "Inhale, exhale," she said, teasingly.

"Oh yeah, like you've caught your breath already," he said pointedly.

She smiled, scooting closer to him. "I could get real used to you kissing my stomach like that," she said, placing his hand below her rib cage and resting her own upon it.

"Well, I want our baby to know that it's loved," Leonard said.

"And making it feel included when we have sex is an appropriate way to do that?" Penny asked.

"All of the books say the baby is not aware of anything we do! Especially not at this stage, it's just a little embryo."

"I know," she said, smiling. She looked up at the ceiling and let out a contented sigh. "It's just," she said, shaking her head and tugging the covers down so her stomach, completely flat, was visible. "_Wow_." She glanced at Leonard, and they smiled at each other. "I can't believe this finally happened," she said, shaking her head slowly. "We're going to be parents. We're going to be Mom and Dad."

"We already are, technically," Leonard pointed out.

"Wow," Penny said again in wonderment. She placed both hands flat against her skin. "I feel like I should look different already. Or feel different. It just seems so weird that on the outside I look the same and on the inside…"

"You don't look the same," Leonard said, rolling his head to the side to see her better.

Penny frowned. "If you're already calling me fat, then you're in for a hell of a rude awakening."

"No," Leonard shifted his weight and put on his glasses. "That's not what I meant at all. I meant…" he moved his finger from the left to the right in emphasis, "the exact opposite of that."

Penny cocked her head, her hair dropping to the other side. "So this is one of those 'I'm in love and she's pregnant so she just looks gorgeous to me' things? Because it's going to take me some time to figure out how I feel about that, you know, the whole debate over 'is it too cheesy' or 'is it adorably sweet'. Honestly, I'm leaning toward not cheesy because I don't want this to be one bit like those movies or shows, they overuse every already clichéd storyline in the book, and…"

Leonard laughed. "No. Don't," he warned when she put on a hurt look. "First, we're not scripted so I doubt any of that is going to happen. And what I mean is for the last year, even when we were happy, you always had that slight edge to you. You never quite relaxed, never quite looked completely happy, no matter if it was a good day or not. You always looked a little tired, a little drawn, and your eyes were just carrying this angst." He lazily ran his fingers through her hair. "Now you look like a huge weight's been lifted. You're completely relaxed. You look happy, and it doesn't look like you're just trying to be at all. You just _are_. And your eyes are happy. That weight is just…well, it's gone. "

"Yep," Penny said. "Went right off my shoulders and into my uterus!" She frowned. "God, that word sounds awful, doesn't it?" Leonard laughed. She repositioned so she could cuddle up against him. "Uterus." She said again, wrinkling her nose. "That is a terrible word. I like 'womb' better. I'm going to use 'womb'." She let out a breath and cuddled closer to Leonard again. Then she felt his chest shake, and she looked at him in alarm before she realized that he was laughing. "What?"

"Build – A – Baby," he said, snickering. "I'm sorry, that's just funny to me."

Penny giggled and curled back up next to him. "Night, Dad."

* * *

><p>"So do you know what's wrong with Amy?" Bernadette asked, coming over to Penny's section of the restaurant and sitting down.<p>

"No," Penny said. "I haven't seen her in two days. And shouldn't you be at work?"

The former restaurant employee ignored that question. "Apparently, well, according to Sheldon who told Leonard's mother who's conversation was overheard by Leonard who told Howard who told me, who is telling you…" Bernadette stopped for a breath. "Amy has holed herself up in her apartment and is doing research that is apparently unrelated to her field. She will not tell anyone what she is doing and it is bothering Sheldon immensely."

"Are you sure she just didn't get absorbed into you?" Penny asked. "With those long ass sentences of yours."

Bernadette smiled. "I'm just a little worried about her, it actually seems like something is bothering her and nothing ever bothers Amy. It reminds me of when she stressed out over you when we thought you could be sick."

"Well, I'm not sick now," Penny said. "But I guess that behavior is a little odd." She looked at the clock. "I'm off in ten, maybe I'll go over there and see what's going on."

"Sheldon said that she's not letting anyone in because it may distract her from whatever the hell she's doing," Bernadette said.

Penny raised an eyebrow. "Bernadette, it's _me_."

"Ah." Bernadette nodded. "Good point." She stopped and studied Penny for a moment. "This probably sounds odd, but you look really good today."

Penny smiled. She _felt _really good too, and how could she not. Leonard's child was with her. But she didn't tell the microbiologist that. It wasn't time. She simply smiled. "Thanks, Bernadette."

* * *

><p>Penny slung her purse over her shoulder as she neared Amy's door. It was one of the first times that she'd ever come there unannounced; usually it was the other way around. But she was legitimately concerned; Amy was nothing if not social – as ironic as that statement sounded when talking about the kind of girl who was proud to be Dr. Sheldon Cooper's girlfriend – and this behavior was…well…different. Penny had been around horses long enough to know that a difference, whether seemingly positive or negative, was always a red flag worth checking in to simply because it was a break in routine. And while Amy was no horse (thank Cow, after her previous lesbian comments and comparison of Penny to Catherine the Great), both were subject to the same basic behavior patterns.<p>

Penny let out a breath and rapped at the door. "Amy?"

"Penny?"

"Yes, can I come in?" Penny waited for a moment, then added, "please?"

"I'm quite busy."

"Bestie…" Penny whined. She knew that would work, and she only had to wait a moment before the door flew open to reveal a very concerned Amy Farrah Fowler. "Are you sad?"

"What?" Penny cocked her head.

"Are you still sad? Are you stressed? Just the other day you claimed to be happy, but I'm well aware that you tend to hide your true feelings."

"Well," Penny said, crossing her arms. "To be honest, I'm worried." She wondered for a moment or two why Amy hadn't commented on her looking happier, then she realized that her concern for the neurobiologist was probably clouding her face.

Amy's face fell, and she grabbed Penny's wrist and pulled her into the apartment. "What are you worried about now? Tell me, tell me the general topic of your concern and I'll get right on it!"

Penny cocked her head, genuinely confused. "What?"

"I've been emailing with everyone I know that works in a field even remotely related to fertility. They've sent me suggestions and I've cross – referenced them with all of your medical records. I've written sexual positions that are supposedly helpful for conception in this notebook – and some of them are pretty outrageous – and I've read six books on the subject." Amy looked down. "Bestie, I wish I could help you. I'm trying, but…"

Penny stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her friend. "Amy, you don't have to do this for me."

Sheldon would have leapt away as if she was radioactive, but Amy hugged her back. "You are my best friend. You are sad. Of course I have to do this." She sighed. "And there could still be something wrong with you that they just haven't found. And I'm determined to find it before it gets out of control."

"Amy," Penny said gently, "I love you for doing this, but I'm fine."

"No," Amy said. "I've watched you this past year. You've been a mess." She looked her friend in the eye. "And Leonard's a moderately intelligent young man, but I have the better connections when it comes to finding this problem, so then," she stopped to breathe, "then you can be happy again."

"No," Penny said. "You don't understand. I'm _not_ sad. I'm _happy_." She pulled back and looked the neurobiologist in the eye. "I'm pregnant, Amy."

Amy cocked her head slowly to the side. "Really?" she said, looking as if she wanted to believe it but wasn't sure.

Penny nodded, holding her gaze. "We found out a few days ago. We didn't want to say anything in case something was wrong, but I swear to you, I'm pregnant, Amy. I am."

Amy stepped back and put her hands to her mouth. "Oh, Bestie, that's great news!" She moved forward again and threw her arms around the waitress. "I'm so genuinely happy for you."

Penny smiled. _Whenever_ Amy said something to her, she knew it was one hundred percent genuine.

"Well, sorry I could not help you," Amy said, pulling back. "Maybe if I had put out this effort sooner, this would have happened before. But…" she looked sad for a moment, and then hopeful. "It's the thought that counts, right?"

Penny cocked her head. "Well…maybe you could do something for me."

"Anything."

Penny smiled shyly. "Okay, well…could I maybe take that notebook?"

Amy grinned mischievously. "I have the most popular ones highlighted."


	44. Swalm

**New chapter time! Sorry it's later in the day again, I decided to go out and be social for once. :D This one is a bit shorter than others, I apologize for that, but the next section is longer and I didn't want to cram it all together.**

**And yeah, that whole not owning thing, that goes here.**

"I can't believe you're pregnant," Bernadette said to Penny the following day as they entered a sub shop for lunch. "Can I touch your stomach?" Penny pivoted to the left so she was facing the microbiologist. Bernadette laid the back of her hand below Penny's ribs. "That's amazing."

"I know," Penny said, putting her hands on the sides of her stomach. "I know I'm going to get huge and have back pain and not be able to sleep and all that, but right now I wish I had a little bump, you know? "So I wouldn't look all that different but people would know, you know, they'd be like _she's pregnant._" She looked down at her still flat front and then back up at Bernadette, who she had told over the phone the night before. After admitting to Leonard that she had told Amy, it seemed impossible to keep the news from the little blonde any longer. "I'm sorry, I can't stop smiling."

The microbiologist laughed. "It's okay," she said. "I can understand. Plus I bet you and Leonard got some decent action last night, huh?"

"O-ho-ho," Penny said, making it sound like three syllables. "You can say that again." She gave Bernadette another grin and nodded.

Bernadette grinned back approvingly. "No chance you'd let me borrow him with Leonard being gone, huh?"

Penny laughed. "He doesn't know you like the back of his hand, my friend," she said, wiggling her eyebrows mischievously.

"Okay," Bernadette said. "New topic. Howard and Raj are finally launching tomorrow."

"Until they claim the weather is bad," Penny said. "Then they'll keep them on the ground another month like they've been doing ever since my cancer scare."

"No," Bernadette said. "Conditions are going to be good over there tomorrow."

"Well, that's good," Penny said, not looking like she really believed it.

Bernadette sighed. "I think we need a new topic again."

"So has anyone wondered why the palm of your hand is called the palm, but the back of your hand is just called the back of your hand?"

Bernadette and Penny turned to look at Amy, raising their eyebrows and glancing at each other before back to the brunette. "What?" Bernadette asked.

"The palm should either be called, 'the front of your hand' or the back of your hand should be called something else." Amy shrugged. "You asked for a new topic, I provided one. I figured you'd want to talk about this over discussing just how intelligent little Iris is for drawing on the board Gilda got her. I think she helped us cover that topic quite thoroughly on Skype earlier."

"Okay…" Penny said. "Do you want to…name it?"

"I think 'front of your hand' is too wordy," Amy said. "Simplicity is always best. 'Palm' works. Let's rename the back of our hands."

"Mine will be Raul," Penny said, picking the first name that came to mind.

"Bestie," Amy said, "not names for our hands in particular. A name for the general 'back of my hand'. Not just yours."

"I think it should rhyme with palm," Bernadette said.

"Alm?" Penny said. "The alm and the palm?"

"An alm is what you give to the poor," Bernadette told her.

"Okay," Penny said. "Balm? No, that's like lotion. Um…qualm?"

"That's a trepidation," Amy told her.

"Swalm?" Penny suggested. If that was a word, she'd jump out her window, baby or no.

Amy and Bernadette looked at each other. "I like it," Amy said, nodding.

"Me too," said Bernadette.

"Okay then," Penny said. "I'll go home tonight and said Bernadette touched my stomach with her swalm."

"That's going to freak him out," Bernadette said.

Penny smirked. "I know. That's why I'm going to do it."

"Oh, Penny," Amy said. "Your mischievousness is adorable."

* * *

><p>"I hate it here," Raj said. "With these close quarters, it feels like Russia has more people than India."<p>

"You and your third world crap," Howard said, opening his laptop. "You lived in a house bigger than Leonard, Penny, and Sheldon's apartment building."

"Still," Raj said. "I did go outside. I saw them."

"True. But this is just the Earth quarters, when we go up tomorrow we're going to be in even closer contact with everyone."

"I won't believe we're going up tomorrow until we actually go up tomorrow," Raj said. "We've been delayed three times already. We were supposed to go up months ago."

"Well, the weather wasn't great," the engineer said. "Do you want us to blow up?"

"Bernadette might want you to blow up; you let her believe you were in space for weeks."

"She wasn't mad," Howard said. "She tracks the weather over here, she was terrified we'd return in these conditions. She's relieved we haven't gone up yet."

"We aren't ever going to," Raj said. "They're going to keep delaying us."

"If you don't stop being so negative," Howard said, "I am going to blast you into little pieces."

Raj didn't look impressed.

Howard's fingers flew over the laptop. "E-mail from home." He clicked open and scanned the brief message. Then his eyes widened. "Whoa!"

Raj put his head in his hands. "Is Bernadette sending you dirty pictures?"

Howard rolled his eyes. "No. Although she should. It's been a couple of days." He looked over at Raj. "Penny's pregnant."

Raj's eyes widened. "Shut your ass!"

"Can't," Howard said, turned the laptop around. "My ass has never been more…" he trailed off as he realized how ridiculous that sentence sounded and figured that the astrophysicist could figure his point out without it. Raj looked at the email. _And baby makes three-T minus seven months. And counting._

**Hope you liked it! I added in the delays of launching because it seems like back when we had the space program things went wrong all the time (although I was very much for it), and the 'swalm' conversation was almost identical to an actual conversation I've had with my roommates.**

**I think this fic just reached 80K *personal celebration***


	45. Assuming the Worst

**Again, you've been warned for this chapter. If pregnancy related complications hit close to home, this chapter may not be for you.**

**Sorry it's up so late, I was watching Warehouse 13 and got distracted. :D**

Leonard heard his phone ring and got up, pulling the cushion off of the couch and reaching down into the couch to find it. These stupid pants with their shallow pockets; the damn phone always was falling out and vanishing. He finally located it and answered. "Hey, Penny."

"Leonard, thank God."

Leonard's smile turned quickly into a frown. She sounded frantic. "What's wrong?" There was no response, only static and background noise. "Penny?"

"I don't…I think I'm having a miscarriage."

"What?" Leonard felt his heart jump into his throat. Standing, he started to tug on his shoes. "Are you sure? I mean, are you…_sure?_"

"I don't know, Leonard!" Penny said, sounding desperate. "How can I know? This has never happened to me before…" she trailed off and he heard her suck in a breath, "…but that whole, you know, mother intuition thingy, I just…you have to come here!"

"Where are you?"

"I'm at the park." Penny sounded as if she was crying. "The bench by the pond. Can you come, please?"

"Did you call an ambulance?" Leonard asked.

"No, I…" he could hear her crying. "My phone is going dead."

"You need an ambulance."

"I need _you_!"

"I'm coming. Just call an ambulance. Call an ambulance. Promise me that!" No answer. He ran out of the apartment, and realized a second after the door closed that he didn't have a key. He didn't care. He had to get to Penny.

Reaching the third floor, Leonard began to feel dizzy with panic. He kept going. Penny was alone on a park bench, possibly losing the baby that they'd spent so much time trying to create. If they had to start over now, there was a great possibility that it would never happen for them, and Penny would always blame herself for their failure. If she went through a miscarriage without him by her side, especially after all that had already happened to them, it was pretty much guaranteed that she'd fall into a state of depression that Leonard feared he wouldn't be able to get her out of. He had to get to her, and fast.

* * *

><p>Leonard jumped out of the car and ran into the park. It wasn't too far to the pond from where he'd parked, and it was only a minute or so before he came over the rise and saw her on the bench, resting her head on her hands, elbows propped on her knees. "Penny!" He called, running toward her.<p>

She raised her head. "Leonard!" She choked, holding her arms out as he reached her and threw his arms around her, pulling her against him and holding her close. "Leonard," she said again, clinging to his jacket and burying her face into the shoulder.

"Are you okay?" He asked, pulling back and putting his hands at her sides. She didn't appear to be miscarrying, at least not based on the limited knowledge he had of the subject, but there was easily enough he didn't know that he could be dead wrong about that. "What happened? What's happening?"

"I was outside the park; I ate a hotdog and had water, then I started through the park, jogging, but not fast, the doctors said that was okay, and when I started on the hill I felt weak, and my stomach started cramping. I got up here and had to sit and my stomach's all tight so I can't sit up straight and my phone was dying and…" He could hear her voice break on the last words. "And I was so scared. I had to call you." She buried her head in his shoulder again, her body shaking.

Leonard swayed gently, trying to calm her down. "You ate, drank, and then tried to jog up the hill. Maybe you…just have a cramp?" He leaned back to look at her. "Because you seem to be okay now…is the pain any better?" His hand hovered around her stomach hesitantly.

Penny swallowed, raising a hand to her eyes to clear the tears. "It's not gone yet, but yeah, it's a stomach cramp. It's better now, pretty much. An off-duty EMT was walking her dog when I came up the hill, and she overheard the phone conversation. She said I was fine, but to get checked out just to be sure." She sniffed. "I should have asked to use her phone, to call you back…I know you must have been worried." She wiped her eyes. "I'm sorry, I overreacted."

"It's okay," Leonard said, pulling her back to him. "You were scared, it's okay to assume the worst sometimes."

Penny started crying again. "I'm such a baby."

"No, you're not."

"Yes, I am." She said it bitterly. "I'm always crying. I'm freaking out about little things…I made you run all the way out here for nothing, and I freaked you out and…"

Leonard stepped back, held her at arm's length, and started shaking his head. "Our family," he said slowly, deliberately, "is not a _little_ thing. You are my family. The baby is our family." He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. "I came over here _praying_, did you hear me? _Praying_! I don't pray, but I was willing to do anything for you and our child to be okay. I love both of you so much." He raised a hand up to her hair. "I came over here terrified that we were losing her and there wasn't anything I could do about it."

"I'm sorry!" Penny said, her shrill voice sounding even more so when she cried.

"No!" Leonard said. "That's not what I meant, I mean I can only imagine how much worse that would have to be for you." He stepped closer to her again. "You're so genuine, Penny. You care enough to worry and cry. You can worry and cry all you want and Amy and Bernadette and myself, we're all going to worry right along with you but whoever you're with is _not_ going to get angry with you. You and the baby are too important."

Penny smiled at him, letting her arms slide around him as he held her. After a minute or two, she leaned her head back to see him better. "Leonard?" She said, smiling slightly.

He looked down at her affectionately. "Yeah?"

"You said 'her'."

A smile came across his face. "Well, I've got a fifty-fifty chance, don't I?"

Penny cocked her head. "Do you want a little girl, Leonard Leakey Hofstadter?"

Leonard looked at her as she smiled at him, and he realized that although he'd never thought about it before, he really did want the little life growing inside of Penny to be a female. "Yeah," he said, "I really do." He tipped his head slightly. "It'd be nice to be able to say 'my girls'."

"I'd love to _be_ one of your girls," Penny said. "As long as your other girl was your daughter, of course," she said jokingly. They smiled at each other for a moment, and then Penny looked away slightly and let out a sharp breath.

"You okay?"

She put a hand on her stomach. "Better. I just can't take really deep breaths. Can you take me home?"

"Yes," he said, but he didn't move. He just looked at her. She cocked her head in question, and he moved toward her again, wrapping his arms around her. He needed to feel her heart beating against his chest; needed to feel her stomach against his, even though the baby inside wasn't showing or moving just yet. "Just give me a minute," he whispered.

She shuddered slightly, putting her own arms around him. "Okay," she whispered back.

They hugged for several Mississippis before breaking apart. "Let's go home," Leonard said gently, helping her to her feet. "You okay walking?"

"Mmmhmm," she said, nodding and taking one of his hands.

She leaned her head on his shoulder as they walked down the slope to the car. "You're not out of breath at all?" Leonard asked her. He felt her head move in a negative direction. "Good," he said, unlocking the car and holding the passenger side door. "Now we're going to go to the hospital and have them look at you, okay? Just to make sure." She nodded. "Okay," Leonard said, leaning over and kissing her forehead. "It's going to be okay, alright? I promise."

**Sorry for the late update, once again! Poor Penny is paranoid over every little thing-it took this long to get pregnant and she's terrified she's not going to be able to keep it.**

**Next chapter will be up on Wednesday!**


	46. A Nerd From The Get Go

**New update time! Had a long day and didn't get this up earlier like I planned. Also, I promise you the other characters will still have things to do, but please remember if everyone was in every chapter things would be very busy and cluttered. And there will be less of Raj and Howard now that they are in space.**

**And I still don't own anything.**

"Are you ready for bed?" Leonard asked later that night, when he heard Penny yawn for the third time in as many minutes. They were on the couch in 4A – now that they had gotten into the apartment, Leonard was never forgetting his key again – and were watching a movie. It was nearly eleven o' clock, and Penny looked as tired as her yawns were suggesting that she was.

"Mmmm," she answered, yawning again. "But we can't have sex, okay?"

"Okay," Leonard said. In reality, it hadn't crossed his mind. It was late, it had been a long day and they were both tired and stressed, despite the report from the hospital that nothing that had happened to Penny that day would have endangered the child. In fact, it was odd that Penny would just blurt that out… "can I ask why without sounding like a pig?"

She looked at him for a long moment before answering, as if she was trying to decide if she wanted to tell him or not. "I don't want to lose the baby," she admitted in a whisper, a hand going to her stomach. "Today just scared me, so much. I just need a few days." She looked up at him. "I know that what happened today wasn't anything to do with the baby, and he or she isn't in any more danger tonight than any other night, but…" She looked down and then back up at him, her voice cracking slightly. "I want so badly to be close to you tonight. I need to. But I'm too afraid. I know it's crazy, but I can't help it."

"That's one of the least crazy things I have ever heard," Leonard said, giving her a small smile. "And we can be close without having sex. We like cuddling, and that can't harm the baby."

She gave him a small smile back. "Can we go to bed?"

"Yeah. Let's go." He stood up and helped her to her feet. They walked down the hallway; Penny peeked in Sheldon's room to make sure he was asleep; they crawled into Leonard's bed. "Come here," he said, drawing her against him. She cuddled up against him; they were on their sides facing each other, their chests and stomachs and hips pressed against each other, forming a makeshift barricade between their child and the rest of the world. "We'll protect her," he whispered, sliding his arms around Penny's waist.

There it was again. Her. Penny smiled in spite of the fear that still occupied her very existence. "I know," she whispered back for lack of anything else to say. She pushed her nose into the crook of Leonard's neck and fell asleep with his heart once again beating in time with hers.

* * *

><p>"Hello, Penny," Sheldon said, smiling in greeting as Penny entered 4A.<p>

"Hey Sheldon," she said, sitting in Leonard's chair. "Is Leonard around?"

"He's working late," Sheldon said. "Can you drive me to Pottery Barn?"

"Yeah," she said. "Just let me close my eyes for an hour."

"Have you grown bored of them being open?"

She had already closed her eyes, but she opened one of them to regard the theoretical physicist. "How about 'I'm tired'?"

"Whatever you want to call it," Sheldon said. "I'm too much of a gentleman to argue to fiercely with a pregnant woman. Oh," he added, "A package came for you and Leonard today. I signed for it. It's on the counter."

"Bring it to me?" She asked, holding a hand out.

Sheldon looked at her, rolled his eyes, and got up. "Fine." He got up and retrieved the package. "The lengths I go to prove my friendship with you two."

Penny glanced at the label on the box. "It's from Raj and Howard," she said.

"I didn't ask."

Penny rolled her eyes, undoing the wrapping. She found herself holding large headphones and a Walkman. "How old is this thing?"

"I'm no longer interested," Sheldon said. "But as it is a Walkman, fairly old."

Penny rustled through the paper and found the note. _It is easy for babies to learn languages when they are young-it gets harder when they grow up and are unable to recognize phonemes. Play this for yours._

Penny raised the headphones to her ears, curious. The sounds coming from them sounded vaguely familiar, but she couldn't place it. "What the Hell is this?" she asked. "Sheldon?"

"Oh for Pete's sake," Sheldon said, coming over and putting the headphones on. Then he smiled. "It's Klingon," he told her, handing them back. "I don't usually say this about those two, but what a brilliant idea!"

* * *

><p>"So are you playing the Klingon for the baby?" Gilda asked, grinning.<p>

"Oh yes," Penny said, rolling her eyes. Leonard had in fact insisted on it - their son or daughter was going to be a nerd from the get go. "And it is amazing. In fact, I think you should play it for Iris!"

"Oh no," Gilda said, shaking her head, "Iris is already too old to get all the benefits."

"She can't listen to it while she colors on her board?" Bernadette asked.

Gilda looked horrified. "One does not 'color' on a board. Those are calculations."

"I'm pretty sure what we saw yesterday was a duck."

"Look at her," Penny said, pointing to the pregnant woman talking to her husband on the far bench. "She has the glow. Why can't I have the glow?" Gilda and Bernadette stopped their good natured argument to smile sympathetically.

It was three weeks after the miscarriage scare, and ever since then, Penny had done what she knew Leonard had feared she would do-she had lost the happiness of being pregnant and instead became a paranoid, anxious woman who was afraid of doing anything lest it hurt the baby she was incubating. She'd be in the middle of something and suddenly become panic-stricken because of a muscle cramp or a twinge of any kind, whether it be around her stomach or in her arm or leg. Neither she nor any of the guys knew if this was normal for a pregnant woman or if the time and effort that Penny and Leonard had dedicated and the emotional strain they had gone through to conceive this baby made them all the more desperate to hang onto it-she knew Leonard was paranoid too, but it didn't take a theoretical physicist to know that she was far, far worse.

Now, she was sitting on a park bench, eating a salad, Bernadette and Gilda beside her and Howard on the phone. Leonard was working – he'd actually taken two weeks off to stay with Penny and try to ease her back into a somewhat calm state, but after the two weeks had passed he had to go back to work if he wanted any vacation time at all once the baby was actually born. Penny was working, too, and it seemed to help her, but there were still moments when she wanted to break down crying right in the middle of the restaurant.

"You just need to stop overreacting," Gilda said, shrugging like it was no big deal.

"Easy for you to say," Penny said, stabbing at some lettuce with her fork.

"You do need to relax, though," Bernadette said gently. "I think you'll know if something actually is wrong."

"But then it may be too late," Penny said. "I'm only, what? About eleven weeks in? Something can go wrong so fast…"

"But what are the odds of that?" Bernadette asked. "Taking so long to get pregnant and not having cancer does not make you high risk. Your chances of something going wrong are actually pretty slim."

"She's right," Howard chipped in.

Penny knew he had next to no knowledge on this topic; he was just agreeing with Bernadette, but she appreciated his input just the same. "I guess," she said. "So Howard," she said, "your cell phone sounds pretty good in space!"

"Yeah," Howard said. "Amazing reception up here, it's almost as if I was on specialized equipment projecting my voice to Bernadette's phone. Who'd have thought cell phones work outside the atmosphere? They don't even work in planes!"

"I know," Penny said, "but hey, look what year it is. Almost anything is possible!"

"It sure is," Howard said, sounding as if he was trying not to laugh. Bernadette and Gilda turned their heads and coughed to hide their smirks. Penny frowned. "Are you all messing with me?"

"No," Gilda said, reaching over Bernadette to pat Penny's stomach. "No, Preggers."

Penny managed a smile, and then sighed, glancing back at the happy couple a few yards away. "I just wish I could look like that."

"Well, you're thinner than her," Bernadette pointed out. Penny laughed.


	47. Decent Proposal

**My goal was to get this in before the seminar, and CHALLENGE COMPLETED! :D**

**Still don't own anything. Rats.**

"Hey sweetie," Leonard said when he got home from work, dropping his key in the bowl.

Penny looked up from her place at the counter. "Hey," she said, sounding out of it.

"Something wrong?" Leonard asked, looking concerned.

She shook her head. "No, it was just one of those days." She crossed one leg. "You know. I'm tired. Not to mention, and I don't know if this is pregnancy related or not, but my back hurts."

Leonard dropped his bag onto the couch. "You want a massage?"

"I don't think you sitting on my back is a good idea," she said, putting a hand behind her and pressing it against her lower back.

"What about if I don't sit?" Leonard asked. "There'd be no weight on the pelvis, and it might loosen the tension in your shoulders."

Penny thought about it. "That's really tempting. But you're not certified. I can't risk anything."

"What if you sat in front of me and I just did your shoulders? I doubt that could harm anything." He walked over to her and rested his lower arms on the counter, taking her hands in his. "You can't be in limbo for the next six months, Penny."

She sighed. "I know, it's just…" she removed one of her hands from his and put it on her stomach. "It's just nine months. Why can't I be extra careful during that time? I mean, I screw up once and this could all be gone. And that scares the hell out of me."

"I know," Leonard said. "And I understand. But you don't have to be afraid all the time. You're out of the first trimester, most things that go wrong do so earlier than this. Look at me," he demanded when her eyes dropped. "We're gonna be okay."

She leaned over and kissed him, her hand going from her stomach back to his hands. They smiled at each other. "I know," she said. "I just…I can't help it."

He squeezed her hands. "Want to go see a movie?"

She shook her head. "Popcorn smell aversion, remember?"

"Okay," Leonard said, "wanna watch something here?"

"Can I lay down?" At Leoanrd's nod, Penny grinned. "I'd even tolerate a little _Star Trek_ tonight."

"We can watch _Sex And The City_," Leonard told her.

"You're always reminding me why I love you," she said, grabbing his hand and pulling him toward the couch. She put a DVD into the player, and crossed back over to the couch, where Leonard sat on one end. She lay down across the span, her shoulders in his lap and her head on the arm rest.

He ran his fingers through her hair as the DVD menu began playing. She grinned at his eyebrows shooting up. "_Star Trek_?" She grinned back at him as he kissed the tip of his pointer finger and touched it to her nose. "You always remind me why I love you, too."

* * *

><p>"Sheldon, we need to scar my mother again!"<p>

Sheldon looked up from his computer. It wasn't like Amy to storm into the apartment and make such proclamations. "What?"

"My mother. She is asking me why I've had a boyfriend for so long and nothing is progressing. I can no longer distract her with stories about Penny, Bernadette, and Gilda, so I need to appease her on the boyfriend front again. Care to draft a dirty story and dictate the details to her via webcam once again? That's worked wonders before. And we know she won't talk about that with her friends."

"Is it really going to keep working?" Sheldon said. "Won't she figure us out eventually? My mother is a woman who you can only fool once. And if she wanted something to talk about, she wouldn't stop until she had it."

"Well then what are we supposed to do?" Amy said.

Sheldon shifted his weight. "Forgive me if this is forward, and I do apologize, we've only been in a relationship for two years so this might seem a little rushed, but what if we gave her something to talk about?"

"You mean like fake a marriage?" Amy asked. "That could get complicated. If we broke up, we'd have to continue to play it up as a marriage or fake a divorce, and I don't think either of our parents would like that much."

"Oh, please," Sheldon said. "In order for us to break up, the person initiating the split would be required to move to another planet. So unless science really progresses during our lifetime, there's basically no way we can break up, and even if it happens when we're old, and you're gray, there's really no point in not sticking it out, right?"

"When _we're _old, and _I'm_ gray?"

"So essentially," Sheldon said, "this relationship agreement already has us in a 'til death do us part' commitment."

"Sheldon, are you suggesting that we get married?"

"Oh, we wouldn't have to call it that," Sheldon said. "There's certainly be nothing that anyone could call _consummation_, but it would certainly quiet your mother, mine would be disappointed but she's not intellectually capable at understanding out ways, and it would stop our friends from trying to encourage us to act more like a couple. I am given to understand we could also eat cheaper meals at restaurants on anniversaries."

"You make valid points," Amy said. "What exactly do you propose?"

"We go to the courthouse, get an official marriage license, and resume life as usual."

Amy thought for a moment. "I accept your proposal."

Sheldon smiled. "I assumed you would."

"But there is one little problem," Amy said.

"Your fiancé in the East?"

Amy shook her head. "We have to kiss when we get married."

Sheldon froze, and then he put a hand to his lips, as if shielding them from hers. "Have you kissed anyone before?"

"Sure," Amy said. "Among a few others, you."

"I was kissed by a very drunk mother of Leonard," said Sheldon, "and in a joyous stupor. While I can see marrying me as an event to get you back to that level of happiness in which you'd feel spontaneous…"

"Sure, we have kissed before," Amy interrupted. "But that wasn't planned. This is something that not only would have to happen, it would be premeditated."

"I am sure I can tolerate kissing you again, just once, in order to escape the teasing of our friends and to get a free meal once a year."

"Very good. Shall we practice?" Amy asked.

He shook his head. "No, I think once is enough. Although I supposed I could write in the agreement a clause that allows kissing on birthdays or anniversaries." He smiled. "See how I am agreeing to a give and take?"

Amy smiled. "I was hoping you'd say that. I'm glad you will be my husband, Sheldon."

"You don't have to say that, Amy," Sheldon said. "This isn't a required part. Although of course you are. It's me."

"I know," Amy said. "But what would you think of me if I had married my fiancé in the East? Or someone like Koothrapali?"

"I wouldn't respect you," Sheldon said honestly.

"So aren't you glad that I'm glad that it will be you that I marry?" Amy asked. "Marriage demands respect. And me stating it shows that I care about our relationship being respectful."

Sheldon smiled. "Amy Farrah Fowler, your powers of persuasion are unrivaled."


	48. Ice Cream and Eggplant

**New chapter time! Sorry for it being so late once again.**

**And I still am the owner of _nada._**

"You're not still breastfeeding, are you?" Penny asked.

"No," Gilda said, dropping her bag on the floor and re positioning on the stool. "Why?"

"Because we put lots of alcohol in this ice cream and the amount we left virgin is barely enough for preggars here to eat," Bernadette said. "And if she had to split it with you she'd go crazy."

"Cravings, huh?" Gilda said, grinning and taking a bowl from Bernadette.

"Slightly," Penny said. "Ice cream and eggplant. But not together."

Gilda made a face. "Well, sugary things are very commonly listed in terms of cravings in pregnant women."

"Did you know that, Penny?" Bernadette asked.

"Yes," Penny said, looking embarrassed.

"Did you freak out and Google it?" Gilda asked.

She looked away, blushing slightly. "Maybe."

"I noticed your boobs are getting slightly bigger," Gilda said, nodding toward Penny and taking a bite of ice cream.

Bernadette looked over at Penny. "Um...I guess I can see that."

"I'm surprised you didn't notice," Gilda said. "You're about at eye level with them."

"_Oh_!" Penny clapped her hands. "Good one!" She reached across the table and gave Gilda a high five. "And yeah," she said, "this is one of the pregnancy perks, I guess."

"In my defense, she's worn jackets the last couple of times I saw her."

"Very true," Gilda said. "And based on my observation, you, Penny, are on track to have a better pregnancy bosom than me!"

"Please don't tell me that that's on your board," Bernadette said.

"Oh, my charts are in notebooks," Gilda said. "I've just outlined the expected trajectory for Penny on the board very basically since she's only twelve weeks along."

Bernadette glanced at Penny, who was finishing the last of the non alcoholic ice cream. "This doesn't bother you?"

"Sheldon and Amy both have my menstrual cycle documented," Penny said. "If Gilda wants to track my breasts, she can have at it as far as I'm concerned."

Amy burst in the door, making Penny and Bernadette jump. "Guess what? Guess what?" She stopped. "Penny! Your breasts!"

Bernadette smirked, glancing over at the waitress, who gave her a mock glare. "Yes!" Penny said. "Two of them, in fact. I've had them almost twenty years, can you believe it?"

"Told ya," Gilda said, grinning. She looked at Amy. "I noticed too!"

"I would say 'how can you not', but she has been wearing jackets and I doubt Bernadette here noticed."

"I'm married!" Bernadette said. "And undeniably straight."

"I'm married!" Gilda protested.

"But you're denying 'undeniably straight'?" Penny said, grinning.

Amy crossed her arms. "I'm engaged."

"I thought that being married, undeniably straight would go without saying. Wouldn't you agree, Bernadette?" Gilda asked.

"Sure, but my sexuality wasn't being questioned here," she pointed out.

"She has a point," Penny said.

The three of them turned in unison to look at Amy. "You're engaged?" Bernadette said.

"To Sheldon?" Penny said.

"Seriously?" Gilda asked.

"Seriously!" Amy said. "We got engaged last night."

"How did he propose?" Bernadette asked.

"Oh, it wasn't a dramatic down on one knee charade," Amy said. "He was very intellectual about it." She fanned herself and grinned. "The _mind_ on that man!"

"Every girl wants a man with a big brain!" Bernadette said, giggling.

Amy looked confused, but Gilda grinned. "I got it!" Penny offered her another high five.

"Do you like Leonard's mind?" Bernadette said, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively.

"Sure do," Penny said. "Especially when he uses it to find things on Google, plus he has lots of room to store information about me."

"Relating to said Google searches?" Gilda asked.

"Not only," she said. "He's done a remarkable amount of research on the baby." She put a hand on her stomach. "And we should probably stop the innuendos now."

"Why?" Gilda said, "it's so much fun!"

"The baby can't hear for eighteen weeks, Penny, you're more than a month away from that."

The three heads turned in unison again. "What?" Amy said, shrugging. "I can do research, too."

"We'll stop now anyway," Bernadette said, patting Penny's stomach.

"We're going to corrupt him or her soon enough," Penny said, smiling. "And congrats, Ames. It's been a good day for both of us, then!"

"See?" Bernadette said. "See that, right there?"

"See what?" Penny asked, looking confused.

"I think she means your completely adorable smile, Bestie," Amy said.

"I'd have to agree with Fowler here," Gilda said, nodding. "I knew I liked you!"

Amy beamed.

"What I mean is," Bernadette said, "look at you! You said you were afraid you weren't going to have that happy pregnancy woman look. But look at you now!"

"Well, hey," Penny said. "True friendship is like sound health, right?"

"I never thought of you as the type to quote the likes of Charles Caleb Colton," Bernadette said. "I'm the literature fan here!"

"Quick, Bestie," Amy said, "quote something from country music!"

Penny thought a moment. "I've got a good old friend here with me tonight, so I guess I'm doing alright."

"Thinking on the spot," Gilda said, offering up her hand. "Nice!"

"I've hit my high five limit for the evening," Penny told her, "but say something witty tomorrow and I'll be all up on that."

"_A_ good old friend?" Bernadette said. "Only one?"

"She means me," Amy said. "We're besties."

"We're both mothers!" Gilda protested.

"Hey!" Bernadette said, "She's known me the longest!"

"Ladies, ladies," Penny said. "You asked me to quote, not paraphrase.

**I love the canon girls' dynamic; I tried to incorporate Gilda into it while keeping the mood light and having the girls play off some of Amy's borderline inappropriate comments as a joke; they do it for humor on the show and I've decided to make fic!girls take it that way as well.**

**Look for your next update on Tuesday! :)**


	49. Fourteen Weeks

**New update! And yes, I'm doing it early this time because I GET TO SEE MY LITTLE SISTER EARLIER TODAY! *flails* **

**Ahem. Here you go. It's short, apologies. (Or maybe not, since you've already had to read all this I've written so far?) For the record, a couple of weeks has passed since the last chapter. Penny is now a little over three months pregnant.**

**And I still own nothing.**

"We're doing what?" Penny asked, closing her book and looking over at Leonard, who had sat down and announced that he had something to talk about with her in a manner that didn't appear totally fun and carefree, but wasn't serious enough sounding for her to be overly concerned.

"We're going to spend a week in Nebraska with your parents." Leonard repeated.

Penny was confused. "Why?"

"No reason," Leonard said. "I just figured you'd like to see them."

She smiled. "Well, yes, but…work…"

"I've taken two weeks off. Our plane leaves tomorrow evening. It's not optional."

Penny looked at him, a smile coming over our face. "I'll never be able to forget why I fell in love with you," she said, leaning over to kiss him quickly. Deep down she had wanted to be with her parents right now, at least for a few days. No matter how much she loved Leonard or how supportive he was being, there was nothing like one's mother and father, and as happy as the girls made her, she was still scared, about everything. And her parents had a way of making her feel better in a way different than the girls did, and different from Leonard. Suddenly something occurred to her, and knowing how bad Leonard's surprises normally turned out, no matter how good his intentions were, she asked, "my parents know we're coming, right?"

"Of course," he said, laughing. "I don't decide to lie to your parents." There was a small silence. Penny looked down. "I'm sorry," Leonard said quickly, putting a hand on her shoulder.

"No, no," Penny said. "It's not you."

She didn't volunteer anymore. Leonard lowered his head a fraction to try and see her face. He was starting to suspect that what he thought she was upset about wasn't actually what it was. "Then what is it?" he asked carefully.

"Just…" Penny shrugged. "Just…it just makes me remember how many times I lied to them. And as my father so happily illustrated to you, that was quite a lot." She looked down and then up again. "What if I don't have a relationship with our child? What if you don't? What if he or she doesn't love us?"

"Penny," Leonard said, moving slightly closer to her, "we're going to love our baby. And he or she is going to know that. He or she is going to have a connection to us that my mother and father do not have with me. We're going to be much better than that. And we're going to be a _real_ family, and while I'm sure we'll have our share of drama, there's going to be love here. Okay?"

Penny looked down to where his other hand rested on her leg. She put both of hers on top of it. "When we go…I want to make sure that my parents know that we're going to let them be grandparents, okay? Like, we'll go see them, and let them come here, and spoil this kid rotten. I want to make up for lying to them, and running off with Kurt." She looked up at Leonard, her eyes asking the question.

He smiled. "Sure. Sure. Your parents are going to be great grandparents," he said.

"Well, not for a while," Penny joked. Leonard looked at her in confusion for a moment, and then rolled his eyes. "I'm serious."

"Think so?" Penny asked, smiling.

"Yep," Leonard said matter – of – factly. "Grandparents love their grandchildren exponentially from their own children. At least it'll seem that way. My grandparents were closer to me than my parents were. I know Sheldon for a long time could only truly love one person – his Meemaw. What about you?"

"I had _great_ grandparents," Penny said, laughing when Leonard raised his eyebrows in an attempt to continue her joke from earlier. Then her eyes widened as she looked at him, it just hitting her. "Holy crap on a cracker, we've made our parents grandparents!"

Leonard started laughing. "Yes," he said. "We have."

"Oh," Penny said, smiling and leaning back, putting her hands on her slightly distended stomach. "Oh, baby, you've done so much already." She ran her hands around her front. "I can definitely notice this now," she told him.

Leonard reached out and ran his hand over her, smiling. "Stand up, profile!"

She rose and turned so he was viewing her from the side, and she slid up her shirt and grinned when she saw him smile. "I can still hide it beneath my clothes, but I can show it when I want to," she said. "This is the stage to be at."

"Especially since the second trimester you'll feel better than the first, and you're just about there now," Leonard said.

"That's right," she said. "Fourteen weeks!" She ran her hand over her stomach again. "Fourteen weeks."

**Hope you enjoyed it! And we will be meeting Penny's mom in this fic; those of you that read The Story of Penny, she is going to be the same characterization as Penny's mother in that fic. She is my head canon and I'll stick with it as long as the show permits! : )**

**Look for another update on Thursday.**


	50. An Iris of Her Own

**New chapter! Sorry it's late, sorry it's short. I may not be updating on Easter, but we'll see. : )**

**Aaaaand, drumroll please…I still own nothing.**

Bernadette's feet hurt.

Bernadette's feet hurt a lot.

She was allowed to sit at her job, sure, but for some reason today she felt the need to stay on her feet, relishing the pain in her feet that grew worse and worse as the day went on. She even stood during her lunch. She felt like a masochist.

She knew it was because she missed Howard and wanted something to feel something other than loneliness. And she knew that wasn't exactly a healthy way of going about it. But it's not like she was cutting herself. It's not like she wasn't eating. She was simply staying on her feet all day. People did that all the time. It wasn't a big deal. She just wanted to feel something.

What was probably a big deal was the fact that since Leonard and Penny left yesterday evening she felt even more lonely and formed the need to inflict pain on her feet. She wasn't supposed to be so affected by change. That was Sheldon's job.

But Sheldon was learning to adapt to change, and with Amy, he was never lonely anymore. Leonard and Penny always had each other, Raj…well, Raj was alone a lot but he was spending all his time with Howard and the other astronauts. That left Bernadette and Gilda. And Gilda had to spend any time her husband was home with him; when he was away she still had Bernadette _and_ Iris. And while she spent her fair share of time with Bernadette out of empathy, Iris was her rock, the one who kept her on track while her husband was out of town. Her little bit of her husband that she got to keep with her.

Maybe her body was a little worn from it; maybe she was tired a lot of the time. But dammit, Gilda wasn't lonely when he left.

And being lonely was one of the worst feelings she had ever experienced-though that was largely due to luck; any number of those almost failed experiments could have gone the other way and then she might not even be here.

But now was not the time to dwell on the past.

But if one could visit the past, Bernadette wanted to go back in time and punch herself and everyone else who had made fun of Raj for being lonely. She wanted to get in her past self's face and yell at the old Bernadette for thinking he was pathetic.

Because she knew how that felt now. Being alone. And feeling pathetic. And it sucked.

It sucked a lot.

It sucked to the point where she almost-_almost_-wished she had an Iris to spend her lonely evenings with.

* * *

><p>Both of Penny's parents greeted the couple warmly at the door. "Oh, baby," said her mother, clutching her daughter to her and pushing her cheek against Penny's. There were tears in the older woman's eyes, and when she released Penny she grabbed Leonard in the same warm hug. "Hello, my dear," she said, squeezing him tight. Leonard wasn't comfortable hugging mother figures; he wasn't sure how tightly to hug her back. He decided he'd rather underachieve in this aspect and not suffocate her and appear overenthusiastic.<p>

Upon their breaking apart, Leonard and Wyatt shook hands. "Good to have you here, son," Penny's father said warmly.

"Good to be here," he said, smiling.

"And look at you," said Wyatt. "You starting to show just a little bit, arncha?"

"Daddy," Penny said in mock annoyance, putting her hands on her stomach. Then she smiled. "Just a little bit." She looked down, and then up again. "You can tell? Leonard still can't unless I lift my shirt."

"I can, too!" He protested.

"It's because your father and I haven't seen you in a while," said her mother, smiling at Penny. "Oh, you two, come in! I've got your old room all set up."

"Thanks, Mom," Penny said. "Mind if we go up there now?"

"Not at all," Wyatt said, slapping Leonard lightly on the shoulder. Leonard smiled at Penny's father. Why the man had taken such a liking to him wasn't fully understood by the physicist-unless he was really, really not understanding, even after all this time, the kind of guys Penny used to date-but it still pleased him. He'd heard of so many who'd had trouble with in-laws; he and Penny would have no trouble with that – not after that night of bonding with Beverly that she, Penny, and Sheldon all refused to share the details of.

"So this was your room, huh?" Leonard asked, leaning against the threshold upon reaching the top of the somewhat creaky wooden stairs. "It's very bare."

"I took down all my posters when I left," Penny said. "It used to be so full of stuff in here. Posters, magazines, makeup…guys."

"I don't wanna hear about all the guys that have come through here," Leonard said jokingly, sitting on the bed. Then he jumped up as if the mattress was radioactive.

Penny laughed at his reaction. "Leonard, it's not diseased."

He laughed, sitting back down on the bed. "So this is where my Lovebug grew up."

"Yep," she said, sitting down next to him. "This is where I come from." She put her head on his shoulder, a grin forming on her face. "The manure smell bothering you yet?"

"So much."

Penny laughed. "You'll get used to it, I promise."

"I hope so," he joked. "We're gonna be here for a while."

"This was your idea, remember," she said, punching his shoulder lightly.

He laughed. "I know."


	51. Boopsie

**Sorry I couldn't update yesterday, everyone, Saturday is when we have church for Easter and it was a really hectic day. But I'm back up at school now (only a month to go before summer! Woot!) and back to updating regularly. Apologies.**

**DISCLAIMER: The long and the short of it is I am not receiving nor do I deserve payment or any other form of compensation for this fic. Unless you count reviews and word count and all that as 'compensation'.**

Leonard had learned much about Penny's upbringing when Wyatt had visited them during the break up period, so what her mother was telling him now wasn't exactly new. However, he wanted the gentle looking woman to like him, so he smiled, nodded, and added in a few "wow"s and "really?"s whenever he felt it was appropriate, enjoying the approving looks Wyatt and Penny were giving him.

Apparently satisfied that the ice was broken and everyone was coexisting well, Wyatt got up. "I'm going to chop some firewood," he said, looking at his wife. "Did you sew the rip on my glove?"

"It's in the basket by the back door," she told him, smiling.

"I'm going out to see the calves," Penny said, standing and reaching for her sweater. "Want to come, Leonard?"

"Tomorrow," he said, "I still have to get used to this cold."

"Wimp," she said, grinning.

"There's a three day old bull calf you'll really like," said Wyatt, turning to look at his daughter. "Looks like Boopsie."

"Who's Boopsie?" Leonard asked.

"Nobody," Penny said, smiling and giving him a peck on the cheek before heading for the door. "I'll be back."

"No, wait, you gotta stay and tell me about Boopsie!" Leonard said.

"There is no Boopsie!" Penny protested, laughing as she exited the house, pulling her jacket tighter around her to shield from the cold.

"So who's Boopsie?" Leonard asked immediately after she had gone.

"Nobody!" Penny shouted through the closed window. He pretended to swat at her. "Seriously," he said, turning back to her parents. "I'm so curious."

"A heifer that Penny took care of when she was ten," said Penny's mother. "She was there when the mother calved, and the heifer became something of a pet. She bawled her eyes out when that animal died shortly after she moved to California."

"Cows live that long?"

"She was eight," Wyatt said. "That's not considered terribly old, but not really young, either. I'd say…" he looked at his wife. "What would you say?"

"Considering the fact that she was used for breeding and milking, it's not that bad," said Penny's mother. "Probably like a human in their late sixties, although another farmer could tell you something totally different."

"And its name was Boopsie?" said Leonard.

"She named it after a stuffed Manatee we got her on our trip to Florida when she was six."

Leonard was still unable to comprehend exactly what had gone through Penny's younger mind. "_Boopsie_?"

"You'll get used to weird names when the kid comes," said Penny's mother. "Do you guys know if it's a boy or a girl?"

"No," Leonard said, "but we're getting some tests done to make sure everything's okay; they'll happen in about a month and we'll find out then." He paused. "But if it's a girl, she will most definitely not be named Boopsie."

"Well don't tell us," said Wyatt. "We want it to be a surprise."

"The name or the gender?" Leonard asked, smiling.

"Both," Wyatt said. "Unless it's a general name like Jordan, Kendal, or Taylor. But we want to be surprised with the gender."

"We do?" asked his wife.

"Or not. We don't. Do we?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, Wyatt." Penny's mother smiled at her husband, and then looked at Leonard, winked, and mouthed _tell me. _

"I saw that," Wyatt said.

"Saw what?"

Leonard followed the back and forth exchange with a smile. Penny's mother and father had been married for more than thirty years, and despite the slight bickering, they got along really well. Then again, they were born in the generation where if something strained or broke, it was fixed and not thrown away. And clearly Wyatt and his wife were better at that then his parents had been. Penny had said that her parent's marriage wasn't the happiest in the world, but they were good enough together for it to work. He was glad that Penny and himself had a good relationship, and he smiled, thinking that thirty years from now they could be hosting their children in their own home, possibly readying themselves for grandchildren.

He had to remind himself not to think too far ahead. They hadn't even had their child yet. And so much more could go wrong.

**Sorry this was shorter than I'd intended, but the fleshed out part of this will be in the next chapter on Tuesday. Again, apologies for not updating yesterday; it was very hectic. That probably won't happen again; you should expect a new chapter every other day until this fic is over. : )**


	52. Ice Patch

**This chapter is a bit longer than the others, so I apologize to those that read it in their spare time! But I had to make up for the less than 1000 word chapter fifty one!**

**I just want to thank all my reviewers so far, I appreciate every single one of the nearly 400 that have been made.**

**And I still own nothing.**

Penny said good – bye to Bettie and exited the pen. The little bull calf looked at her curiously. "You're a real cutie," she said. "Just like your grandmamma was." The calf lifted a hoof, and then put it back down again. "Get used to walking on those legs," Penny said. "They're important. I remember when your grandmamma hurt her leg pretty badly. It healed, but she wasn't able to walk right again." Penny looked at the pen across from the one where she stood, now housing a cow that she didn't recognize. "Oh Boopsie. You weren't the sharpest tool in the shed." She turned back to the calf. "You're a real cutie, though. A real cutie."

She fastened the bolt and walked across the aisle to Boopsie's old stall and smiled in at the cow inside. "Hey," she said, waggling her fingers. The cow regarded her with mild curiosity. Penny slid back the bolt and eased into the stall. "Hey."

The cow blinked as Penny checked her halter. "Hello, Gene," she said scratching the side of the animal's face. "My cow used to live in this stall."

Gene blinked again, licking her lips and bumping her nose against Penny's stomach. "You ever had a baby?" Penny asked. "You look a little too young." Gene shook her head. "No?" Penny smiled, patting the cow's side. "Well, you're a sweetie; whenever you do have calves I'm betting you'll be a sweet Momma." Gene bumped Penny's stomach again. "I hope that means 'same to you'," Penny told her. "Although you'll have an easier time of it, what with not having to give up alcohol. And when you calve you won't have a bunch of nurses and doctors running around, crowding you, and telling you what to do when. Your species just figures it out on your own. Respect!" Penny shivered as the wind picked up outside, whistling around the barn before dying away again. "I'm gonna go, okay?"

Penny exited the stall and smiled when Gene walked a few paces to the front and put her nose up on the top of the door. Penny scratched it. "I'll see you, okay bebe?" She turned around and walked up the aisle, stopping at the shed of a heavily pregnant cow. "It must be terrible for you when it's so cold," Penny said. "That stupid bull that got in with you guys at the wrong time of the year, that's what happened, huh? My sister was telling me about it." She reached into the pen and scratched the cow between the eyes. "Never let the bull talk sweet to you that time of year, you'll be stuck calving when it's bitter cold out. Good luck with that, sweetie pie."

The wind whistled, sounding much louder in the barn than outside. Penny shivered. "Okay, it's cold and I don't have a pile of straw to cuddle up in. I'll come out and see you guys later." She headed back toward the barn door, slid it open enough for her to slip out, and then fastened it again, squinting as the dim interior of the barn contrasted sharply with the snow and ice outside.

She turned and latched the barn door, and then headed back toward the house. She was smiling, and didn't notice the patch of ice until her feet slipped. She struggled to remain on her feet, but the slight shift in the weight she was carrying and her unexpected slip were too large of factors and within a split second she was on her back, landing with a jolt and then sliding gently down the slight incline for a few feet. The sun shone into her eyes as she lay there, stunned.

After the shock wore off, she began to take deep, steady breaths. She thought her way around her body; nothing was broken, but the air had rushed out of her lungs and so it hurt just a little bit to breath. After a moment, fear shot into her heart.

The baby.

Her hands went to her stomach, sliding them lightly over her bump, and then along to her sides. Nothing felt wrong…but would it, at first? If she'd injured the baby, wouldn't it take a few minutes before something would start to feel wrong? Would she start to bleed? Would she cramp? Would she go into labor? She hadn't landed on her stomach due to the downhill slope that sent her to her back, but it was still a pretty big jolt for a pretty small fetus and she hadn't had the best of luck so far. Was it her back that was starting to hurt? Or was it the beginning of something happening inside of her that she needed to get help for? Was she even feeling that slight back pain, or was it thought into existence by her paranoia?

Penny's hand went into her pocket and found her cell phone. She pressed the #1 button and put it to her ear.

* * *

><p>When Leonard got the phone call, he jumped to his feet while Penny's parents looked at him curiously. "Where are you?" He shouted into the phone as he raced toward the back door without looking at his future in – laws.<p>

He found her lying on her back in the snow, her body lying slightly sideways on the angular path, one hand on her stomach and the other lying on the snow beside her, holding a cell phone. Her shirt had slid up so the lower third of her back was directly exposed to the ice. "Oh my God." He slowed his pace as he reached her. "Penny, are you okay?"

"I think so," she said, lifting her head slightly.

"Does anything hurt?"

"My ankle. I think I twisted it going down. But it's not bad. And my back too. I think it's just my back. I don't think it's my stomach. But it might be. I'm not cramping." She closed her eyes for a moment, and then they cracked open again. "Leonard, am I bleeding?"

Leonard backed up a step and surveyed the snow around her. "Not that I can tell. And it would probably be accompanied with cramping…" He knelt beside her, feeling the snow soak into his knees. He reached out and touched her cold face. "Can you get up?"

"I don't know." She pushed her cheek against his touch. "I didn't want to try." She let out a long breath. "I don't know…" Her breath hitched. "What if I start to miscarry when I stand up?"

"Don't know…?" Leonard questioned, not wanting to think about her final question.

"Do I lie still until I'm sure everything is okay, or do I get out of the cold?"

Leonard bit his lip. "Well, we've talked about going with the "Mom Knows Best" pregnancy…what do you feel is the right thing to do?"

"This style is putting a lot of pressure on my instincts," she said weakly. "I want to get up. Can you help?"

"Of course," he said, standing and reaching for her hands. She got her legs under her and he pulled her to her feet. "Whoa," she said as she regained her balance, keeping her hands in Leonard's for support. When she was just about balanced, she wobbled again, and Leonard let go of one of her hands to swing his arm around to her back. "Thanks," she said, straightening herself up.

"Anything feel different?" He asked her with concern. "Ankle?"

"It's not bad," she said, shaking her head.

"There you go with quoting _Star Wars_ again," he said teasingly.

"I totally am quoting _Star _Wars when I say obscure stuff that they just happen to say in the movies." She rolled her eyes. "But no, I don't feel anything, just walk with me so I don't fall."

He slid his arm around her back. "You're freezing!"

"I was lying on ice for several minutes," she said, her teeth chattering, "it makes sense, genius."

"Shut up," he said good-naturedly as they continued toward the house. He was able to smile now; she didn't appear to be hurt.

Penny's parents burst out of the back door. "Oh my God, sweetheart!" Shouted her mother, running forward and throwing her arms around her daughter, "are you okay?" She looked at Wyatt. "I told you something was wrong, the way that boy went bolting out here faster than The Black Stallion."

"Yeah, Mom," said Penny, managing a smile and feeling uncomfortable with her mother's comment to her father. "I'm okay."

Wyatt grabbed her by the free arm. "Why were you walking on that slippery ice? You need to be more careful!" He looked at Leonard, "does she get into trouble this much in Pasadena?"

"No," Leonard said, managing a smile. "She's okay; we don't get much ice in California. Plus…her center of balance has just been thrown off due to the extra weight in the front."

"Oh my God!" Penny shrieked. "Can you say 'because of the pregnancy? It sounds so much better!"

"Sorry, Love Bug," he said. "But it doesn't change the fact that your center of balance is been altered."

"Go inside and get into something dry," said her mother. "And don't go out by yourself anymore."

"Mom," Penny protested. "I wasn't paying attention. It's been a while since I've spent a winter here. I'll be more careful."

"You really going to risk it?" Leonard asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

She sighed. "Good point. I'll bring Leonard with me, Momma."

* * *

><p>When they got in the house, Penny and Leonard went up to her bedroom. "Where in your suitcase are your pajamas?" He asked her.<p>

"The warm ones? Open it and they're tucked along the side."

He located the pink plaid pajama pants and pink hoodie. "I love how you coordinate your pajamas; no one sees you!"

"Except you," she pointed out. Her voice dropped to a suggestive tone and her expression turned mischevious. "I like lookin' my best for my man."

Leonard grinned at her, handing her the clothes. "Well, you sure know how to get a guy going with all that plaid." Penny pulled off her top, which had been plastered to her from lying on the ice. "Put this in the wicker basket."

"Okay."

"Oh, and I need a new bra, too."

Leonard reached into her suitcase and found one with polka dots. "This okay?"

Penny made a face. "Well, it doesn't totally match my…yes it's fine." Leonard gave her an amused grin as he handed over the undergarment.

When Penny had fully changed into warm clothes she shuddered, taking another wave of cold out of her body. She put her hands on her stomach. "You seem to be okay, baby," she said.

Leonard sat down next to her and put one of his hands on top of where hers rested. He put the other arm around her and kissed her cheek quickly. "It's going to be fine."

"Yeah," she said, looking up at him. She smiled. "I think so."

Leonard smiled. "Come here." He drew her against him, trying to warm her up faster. She rested her head on his shoulder and smiled, despite knowing that he couldn't see it. "Do you want to lie down?"

"No," Penny said. "I want to stay just like this." She pushed her nose into his neck affectionately and then moved her head back into its previous position. "God, we have such bad luck."

"Bad luck?" Leonard asked.

"Yeah," Penny said. "It's certainly not _good_ luck. All these scares."

"That never turned into anything," Leonard reminded her. "We've been lucky in that respect, haven't we?"

Penny thought about that for a moment. "True," she said. "but I can't shake the feeling that somewhere down the line, something is really going to go wrong." She put a hand back on her stomach for a moment, staring ahead as if willing herself to keep it together.

The wind picked up outside, and that drew their attention to the fact that one of the windows was not fully shut. Penny rose and wiggled the latch until it snapped. As she turned to walk the three steps back to the bed, her eyes grew wide, she sucked in a quick breath, and put her hands on her stomach.

Leonard was at her side in an instant. "Oh, my God." He touched her elbows lightly. "What happened?"

Penny looked up at him, her expression much like it was years ago when Beverly Hofstadter had told Leonard to "take very good care" of her. The same slow smile came over her face. "I felt it move."

Leonard, already deep into Panic Mode, took a moment to register what she had said. Then his own eyes grew slightly wider. "What? Are you sure it's not anything…wrong?" As much as he hoped Penny was right, he couldn't help being a little bit paranoid. "It's not too early to feel that, is it?"

Penny shook her head slowly. "We're right at the beginning of when it…" She grabbed Leonard's hand, knowing somehow that this wasn't a sign of something going wrong, and put it flat against her stomch. She was carrying small, she was just at the point in gestation that movement could start to be felt, but there it was. A flutter, ever so slightly. She wasn't even sure if it was enough for Leonard to feel. But it was there. "There…again…you getting any of this?" she asked him.

She could tell by his moist eyes that he did. Keeping his right hand on her stomach, he moved in front of her and took the side of her face in his other hand and kissed her. She closed her eyes and stepped forward so she was against him, her usual movement when they kissed, this time their free hands caught in between them, still feeling the slight movement in her womb, a position that was slightly awkward to maintain, but they managed it.

She sank down onto the bed and him beside her, the experimental physicist's hands cradling her face as he kissed her, her hands on his jacket. When the couple broke apart, they smiled at each other. "Wow," Penny said quietly. "It really is going to be okay, isn't' it?"

Leonard smiled. "It certainly is right now."

**Yes, there is a Gene the Cow on Fringe. Yes, that is where I got this Gene the cow from. No, Gene the cow will not be the answer to the question I will ask at the end of this fic. ; )**


	53. Not So Much a Pocket Dial

**New chapter! So sorry it's up so late, to be honest I completely forgot today was an update day!**

**Still own nothing; you know the drill. :)**

For the next twenty four hours, Leonard didn't leave Penny's side. He wasn't sure about the rules of shock, and he was even less confidant on the window of premature labor after a fall or some kind of trauma. So much was possible now medically, but he knew a sixteen week fetus stood no chance outside the womb, and if something happened because of the fall Penny had taken, he wanted to be right with her when it started, because she'd need to be taken to a hospital fast.

"Leonard," she said to him afternoon following her fall, "I'm fine. It's been almost a day."

"I know," he said, "but it's better to be safe than sorry, right?"

"You might one day be sorry that you turned down my dad's offer to watch sports with him."

"No I won't," Leonard said, sitting on the edge of the bed. "He knows I'm not into that."

"Okay," Penny said. "But I'm just going to be taking a nap, it's not like you're going to have a conversation here." She slid under the covers, lying on her side, and smiled at him. "You're so protective."

"I'm surprised you're okay with that," he said, reaching out with his pointer finger to touch her nose. "Miss Independent."

Her hand shot out to snatch his hand. "You want to make sure nothing's wrong with our baby," she said. "That's not overprotection. That's love." She looked up into his eyes. "And that is so, so sweet."

Leonard crawled into bed with her and settled himself so they were facing each other, noses about a foot apart. "Well, you know, I want to take care of you guys."

"I could get used to that," Penny said.

"Sheldon might say that you already are."

"Sheldon might not like me pointing out that marrying Amy isn't exactly something that the high and mighty Sheldon would ordinarily do and he should get his nose out of our business."

Leonard smiled. "Are they serious about the marriage thing?"

She shrugged. "They seem to be. And it doesn't appear to be a sham like the time they told us they were sleeping together…"

"Which in retrospect we should have seen coming," Leonard said with a smile.

Penny smiled. "Yeah, probably."

There was a knock at their door. "You two decent?"

"Always!" Penny called.

"Yeah right."

"Dad!" Penny said, horrified.

"Can your mother come in, or not?" Wyatt asked. "Maybe if you say 'no' she can let me eat what she's got for you."

"Food?" Leonard said.

"Come in!" Penny said, sitting up and tugging on Leonard's shirt in a request to do the same.

Penny's mom entered the room holding a plate – Wyatt's hand appeared to take something off of it and she swatted him. "Don't hit me!" Wyatt said, his voice fading as he walked unseen down the hall.

"Take it like a man!" she shouted after him, turning back to Penny and Leonard with a smile. "I have cookies."

"Awesome!" Leonard said enthusiastically.

Penny rolled her eyes at him, then looked at her mother. "Cookies, huh? Such a grandmother stereotype."

"Well, I have been a grandma for a while now with your nephew," she pointed out, "but now I can start turning the grandma on you guys."

"Mom," Penny said, sliding the blanket farther down, "do you wanna feel her move?"

"You two are so certain it's a girl, aren't you?" she asked, sitting on the bed and letting Penny take her hand and put it against her stomach, off to the left and down.

"Well, we had to assign some gender," Penny said. "And I refer to people at work that I don't like as 'it'." She smiled. "There, you feel that?" Her mother shook her head, looking disappointed. Penny shifted the hand placement and waited. "Come on, little baby…there!"

Penny's mom put her free hand to her mouth, and then leaned way over, drawing Penny's face in near hers and kissing her daughter's forehead. "That's my little girl. Oh…" she leaned back, trailed off, and smiled at the couple. "I'm just so happy for you guys. And you…" she grabbed Leonard's hand in both of hers and squeezed it. "You're exactly what I wanted my baby to have."

"Look at that," Penny said, putting her arm around Leonard, "You have passed my mother's high standards in a guy."

"Hey," Leonard said, "your dad knew I was a keeper after spending just a couple of hours with him!"

She glared at him; he could tell she was trying not to smile. "Way to ruin the moment there, Homunculus."

Penny's mother raised an eyebrow. "And what would a Homunculus be, exactly?"

"A short guy," Penny said, putting both arms around him and leaning over sideways to pull him close. She rested her cheek on his shoulder and grinned at her mother. "He's my little Homunculus."

"Awww," Penny's mother said. "That would make an adorable photograph."

"No no no!" Penny said, letting go of Leonard, "we don't need any more of your pictures, Momma."

"You take a lot of pictures?" Leonard asked her.

"A few," Penny's mother replied.

"Yes, she does," Penny said at the same time, taking another cookie. "She's got like a million albums of me."

"Mind if I see those?" Leonard asked. "Maybe tomorrow?"

"You can see all of them," she replied, patting her future son – in – law's hand.

"Is Boopsie in any of them?" he asked, grinning at Penny.

"Oh God," she said, dropping her head into her palm.

Her mother grinned. "We have an entire Boopsie album," she informed him. "And tomorrow, or later if you two feel up to it, I will show you exactly where it is."

"I'm thirty and my mother is still embarrassing me," Penny mumbled.

"It's a life long profession," her mother said, tapping her daughter's knee. "Might as well get used to it."

When the older woman had left and the cookies were gone, Leonard put the plate on Penny's night stand and they moved close to one another, sliding their arms around the other's body and settling down on the bed. "You still feeling all right?" he whispered.

"Mmmhmm," Penny said. "I think it's all going to be okay."

"That's…" Leonard trailed off when his cell phone pinged. Reaching over, he lit up the display and squinted. "Blank text from Sheldon." He put the phone back on the night stand and settled back in with Penny. "Probably a pocket dial."

* * *

><p>Bernadette held the phone at arm's length. "Sheldon Lee Cooper, you are not going to text them just yet. She's pregnant and they went away to relax. Until we know what's going on, we're not going to worry them."<p>

"But…" Sheldon looked panicked. "Maybe they can do something!"

"Neither of them are doctors, Sheldon," Bernadette said. "You're just going to worry them, flights out of Omaha would get delayed like crazy because of the weather moving in. They can't do a thing to help, and neither can we. No sense telling them now."

"But…"

"If you say one more word in argument, Sheldon, I swear to God I will drop kick you all the way to Omaha and you can tell them then, but you'll then be the one states away with no way of getting back." Her own cell phone buzzed, and she retrieved the text message. "Gilda and Iris are fine, it appears. We'll be allowed to see them in about a half an hour." She squeezed Sheldon's wrist, forgetting that he didn't like being touched by people. "She's going to be fine, Sheldon. Okay? There's just no use in scaring Penny and Leonard. There's nothing they can do."


	54. The Curie Paradigm

**Okay, new update! We're a few minutes before midnight where I am, but I'm counting this as Saturday's chapter because I'll be gone most of the day and might well forget to do this later. So here it is.**

**DISCLAIMER: I still don't own anything and I doubt that will change any time soon. Unfortunately.**

"Sheldon," Bernadette said, "stop pacing the floor. It won't do any good."

"What else am I supposed to do?" he asked, turning to her. "We get a phone call saying that Gilda, Iris, and Amy were out in that dangerous ocean and an undertow swept them off their feet." He made an exaggerated sweeping motion with his hand. "And then they follow that up with 'Dr. Fowler is breathing but unconscious.' How am I supposed to react?"

"I know you're scared," Bernadette said, sitting up straighter. "So am I. But we can't go see Gilda and Iris if you're acting like this." She stood up. "_Sheldon!_"

Sheldon stopped and stared at her, seemingly surprised by her tone. "What?"

"Calm down." The microbiologist wracked her brain for techniques that he might understand. "Uh…try to increase your alpha wave activity."

"But what…"

"Do it."

Sheldon sighed, closed his eyes, and inhaled. He let the air out slowly and repeated a few times, his eyes twitching slightly. He opened them again, a serene look on his face. Then the tension appeared again. "It didn't work." Sheldon went over to the corner of the waiting room and curled up in a ball.

Bernadette wrung her hands, looking at the clock. They'd been there nearly twenty minutes, and all they knew were that all three were alive, Iris in Good condition, Gilda in Fair, and Amy in Serious. At least it wasn't Critical.

"This isn't a Soft Kitty time, is it?" She asked hesitantly.

Sheldon shook his head. "I'm not sick."

"Is scared sick a type of being sick?"

"I'm not scared sick. I'm dealing with it."

Bernadette tapped her hands on her knees a few times, wishing someone would just come and talk to them. She glanced at the clock again, and then at the door; her gaze ultimately rested on the theoretical physicist again, the man who hated hospitals but was now lying on the floor of one, his head to the wall as if he wanted to shut out the entire world. She got up and moved to the chair nearest to him, clearing her throat. She wasn't the world's best singer, not by a long shot. But she wanted to help.

_Don't be scared to decode.__  
><em>_I know it seems sometimes there is no hope.__  
><em>_Don't be scared.__  
><em>_You're not alone.__  
><em>_Don't be scared._

Sheldon didn't even protest the singing. Either it was helping or he was too upset to care. Either way, Bernadette figured continuing couldn't hurt.

_Please just don't be scared.__  
><em>_Don't be scared.__  
><em>_Don't be sad.__  
><em>_It will be all right.__  
><em>_This too shall pass.__  
><em>_Just get through one more night.__  
><em>_Don't be sad…_

"Doctor Cooper?"

Sheldon was on his feet in an instant. "How's Doctor Fowler?"

"She's serious, but stable. We're hoping that she'll wake up soon. When she does, we'll be able to evaluate if there was any brain damage."

Sheldon's posture changed as the words hit him. "Brain damage?" His face twitched once. "Amy could have brain damage?"

"Of course it's possible in situations like this," said the nurse. "Patients that haven't had enough oxygen to their brain can suffer from temporary memory loss or cognitive impairment."

"Co…" Sheldon trailed off with a sound effect that was similar to being choked by the Force. "Cog…cog…"

Bernadette closed her eyes painfully. Amy's brain, Amy's highly functioning, efficient brain was what had attracted him to her in the first place. They were an intellectual team, they challenged each other, and despite the genuine affection that had grown between them, a large part of what they loved about the other was their brain. If Amy were to wake up significantly beneath Sheldon, if their minds were out of sync, both of them were in danger of losing the other. "Can we see Gilda?"

"Her husband left a minute or so ago," said the nurse. "And he told us that you could have a few minutes with her while he gets…a board, or something. Come with me."

Bernadette and Sheldon followed; the microbiologist noticed that Sheldon was glancing at every door as if it held Amy. "Sheldon, give it a few minutes," she whispered.

They entered Gilda's room to find the woman lying in the bed, a blue blanket covering her almost to her chest, her eyes closed. "Gilda?" Bernadette asked.

The physicist opened her eyes and smiled. "Hey."

"How do you feel? What happened? Where's Iris?"

Gilda shrugged. "I'm okay, I guess. I've been better. Iris is being checked over by her pediatrician. But she had a life jacket."

Gilda's voice sounded more airy than they were used to. "What happened?"

"Undertow. It took us by surprise and pulled us out farther than we wanted, and then we got caught in a rip current. Thank God for the lifeguards and rescue team."

"How is it that Amy's worse off than you are?" Sheldon asked, sounding almost accusatory. Bernadette gave him a warning look.

"I guess she hasn't had a lot of experience in the water," Gilda said. "I mean, I haven't either, but I've exercised a lot more since Iris was born. So I guess I was stronger." She smiled at Sheldon. "I'm sure she'll be fine. They said she wasn't fully unconscious."

"She's alive," Sheldon said. "We just don't know…" He looked away as if he simply couldn't handle voicing the thought.

"We don't know if she's suffered any brain damage," Bernadette said.

Gilda bit her lip. "Ooooh…" she nodded. "You fell in love with her brain, didn't you, Doctor Cooper?"

Sheldon didn't answer. "He's having a big internal struggle right now," Bernadette said.

"I can tell," Gilda replied, nodding.

"So, does anything hurt?" Bernadette asked, looking back at the other woman.

"My lungs when I try to take a deep breath," Gilda responded. "But it's subsiding. Sheldon," she said, "Amy will be the same person. You two have an amazing relationship, you won't stop loving her if she'll be struggling. That's not what fiancés should do."

"So what?" Sheldon said angrily. "I can't mourn the loss of that mind?" His face was twitching again; it pained Bernadette because she knew what was swarming inside of him – fear, grief, conflict over what his feelings for Amy stemmed from.

"Sheldon," Bernadette said, rising. "We don't know if the mind is gone yet. The nurse said it was _possible_. Anything's possible.

"But what if it is?" he said. "Then I won't have anyone who will understand my brilliance."

"Of course," Bernadette said, rolling her eyes slightly. "Of course you'd find some way to make this about you."

"About me?" Sheldon said. "That was a compliment! Amy is worthy of my brilliance, I haven't said that about anyone else – ever!"

"You know," Gilda said, coughing once, "he may come across as selfish and robotic, but that's some real emotion coming from him over there. Sheldon," she said, and the theoretical physicist turned to look at her, "let me ask you something. When Pierre Curie died, he was no longer of any use to Marie. But did she stop loving him?"

Sheldon began to pace again. "It's just so…frustrating!"

"Tell the vein on your neck to ease up a bit there," Gilda said. "I'm sure they'll let you see her soon."

Bernadette took Gilda's hand and squeezed it. "I'm glad you guys are okay."

She smiled. "Thanks." She looked at Sheldon. "I'd never have pegged him as the kind of guy who would actually be overcome by emotion."

"He's done it a few times," she said. "He might be confusing sometimes, but it's really easy to know who Sheldon Cooper loves."

"Amy?"

Sheldon was glad that they had allowed him to come into the room alone. He was embarrassed enough for how he'd acted in front of Bernadette and Gilda. Clutching the item he held in his hands to his chest, he walked across the room to Amy's bed, where she lay still, an oxygen tube running under her nose for added help.

He stopped by the bed. "Amy?"

Her eyes cracked open – thank you, Jesus – and they focused on him. "Hi," she said weakly.

Sheldon smiled, suddenly feeling awkward along with the nervousness. "I…" he wiggled the item he held. "Brought you a get well teddy bear!" He smiled as he held it out to her. "See? It's got a shirt and anything."

Amy smiled. "Thank you."

Sheldon cleared his throat and set the bear down on the bed. "Do you remember what happened?"

Her head tipped to the side. "No. They say an undertow pulled me under. But I don't remember that. I don't remember being at the beach even."

Sheldon looked down. "Well, I'm glad you're okay."

Amy smiled. "Thanks, Sheldon. It'd be kind of insulting if you weren't glad." The corner of her mouth turned up slightly farther.

Sheldon took a small step back. "You remember me?"

Amy's smile vanished. "No, they told me that someone named Sheldon, who was my boyfriend, was here to see me. They hoped seeing you would jog my memory, but…" she shook her head slowly, sadly. "Nothing."

Sheldon felt half his usual size. "Oh. Well, you know, studies have shown that temporary memory loss occurs in a lot of people who experience near drowning, that memory loss can range from a few hours to months or even years. Then there is another type of brain damage that…" He trailed off. "But I want you to know that I'm not going anywhere even if you don't know two plus two. I know what you were, Amy Farrah Fowler, and…"

"Sheldon," Amy said, shifting her weight slightly. "I was kidding. Of course I remember you. You don't like coffee, you have a church agreement with your mother. You get cats when you're lonely. You use Kolinar to suppress sexual feelings. And you asked me to be your girlfriend in a movie theater." She stopped and sucked in a deep breath, wincing slightly, then letting it out easily. "I'm not sure I remember what I had for breakfast, but apart from today, I don't believe I've forgotten anything at all."

Sheldon was sure the relief was evident on his face, and that embarrassed him. He was showing too much emotion for his own good today, but…the thought of death did that to a lot of people. He stepped closer to the bed, bent down, and before he was fully aware of what he was doing, kissed Amy on the lips and then stood straight up and cleared his throat, knowing full well that he was looking as if he was expecting to be accused of something.

Amy smiled in surprise. "Sheldon Cooper," she said.

He nodded down to her. "Amy Farrah Fowler."

She smiled. "I'm glad I have my memory, because if not I wouldn't have been able to appreciate just how sweet that was."

"While I appreciate the meaning behind your words," Sheldon said, "I'm still a bit uncomfortable being called 'sweet'."

"Right," Amy said, nodding. "I apologize."

Sheldon gave the same brief nod. "And I accept."

**This is the most emotional and 'human' I have ever written Sheldon-in this chapter and the one where he freaked out about Penny and Leonard. But I feel like when he's afraid he's going to lose someone important to him, in any way, he becomes almost more human than the rest of them. :) Also, I swam competitively for ten years, I know undertows are really not as big of a deal as many would think-but they can contribute to people being caught in a rip current, which can be dangerous to non swimmers.**


	55. Such a Woman

**New chapter time! This one will be about average length, and was written about ten minutes before it got posted, so a very 'young' chapter, as it were. I'd just like to, first of all, thank everyone who has reviewed so far, and for the messages I've got congratulating me on the word count. Also, no, I do not have an estimate for how long the fic will be. I know how much currently written stuff I have left, but I'm always adding scenes.**

**And I still don't own anything. Balls.**

"So…" Leonard sat down on a hay bale and surveyed the barn. "This is your home town."

"Yep," Penny said, scratching Bettie's calf behind the ears. "And today you saw the theater, the school, the family farms like this one, and the meth labs. The full experience."

"I found it very fulfilling," he said. "Especially the meth labs. And I still believe that graffiti was a storm trooper."

"And I still say that it was making fun of the beekeeper that lives a mile up the road," Penny said.

"And how are you so sure of that?"

"Well," Penny said, giggling at the calf butting it's mother's leg, "for one thing, we're in Nebraska. We don't have a lot of crops that'd be good for honey so the beekeeper really isn't on prime real estate. Second of all, I recognize my brother's handiwork when I see it."

"I didn't know he did…aaah ha!" Leonard jumped off the hay bale, lost his balance, and rolled to the center of the aisle.

"What is wrong with you?" Penny said, exiting the pen and bending down near him. Leonard pointed. Penny saw that Gene had put her head suddenly over the stall door and burst out laughing. "Are you afraid of a cow, Leonard?"

"No," he said, getting to his feet. "It just took me by surprise."

"I wish I had filmed that surprise," she said, laughing. "The baby's moving again," she said. Leonard put his hand on her stomach, smiled, and leaned in to kiss her. Penny smiled at him, then looked over at the cow. "Gene, you wanna feel?"

"How can the cow…" Leonard trailed off when Penny walked over to Gene and the cow pushed its nose against her. "Oh, I see."

Penny ran her hands along the cow's ears. "You're a sweetie," she said. "Worthy of living in…"

Leonard grinned. "Did Boopsie used to live in that one?"

"Oh _God…_ she said, putting her forehead up against Gene's. "I'm never going to live that down, am I, cow?"

Gene sneezed. Penny looked down at her shirt. "Thanks."

Leonard put a hand to his mouth to hide his smirk. "So," he said, changing the subject, "does it feel weird when it moves?"

Penny looked at him in confusion until she realized he meant the baby. "Not really," she said, "it's different, definitely, but…it's just really cool. Like it's finally hit me that there is a living little person in there."

"Who hopefully will cooperate enough for us to get a good look at the ultrasound at the next appointment," Leonard said. The sonograms they'd done so far had rendered them unable to recognize any part of their baby, which frustrated the both of them, Penny especially.

"I hope so," she said. "Amy texted me this morning and said that the hospital people called and had to move our appointment back a half an hour. Sheldon said it was fine, and lucky for him, it is."

"Oh, you finally got ahold of Amy?" Leonard raised an eyebrow. "Did she tell you why she didn't respond to your messages yesterday?"

"Yeah," Penny said, "she told me that she was out with Gilda and Iris, and then she just had a rough evening and didn't feel like talking to anyone. Says she's fine now, though."

Leonard nodded, still looking rather nervously at Gene. "Nice cow…"

Penny rolled her eyes. "You need to get used to farm animals."

"Right, for when they take over L.A."

"You know what I mean."

"Fine," Leonard said, "then you come to New Jersey and get used to…"

"Snookis?"

He shrugged. "Sure. Though we didn't live on the coast. My mother said that the ocean would be 'distracting.'"

Penny raised an eyebrow. "Of course she did." Her expression softened. "Did you tell her about the baby?"

Leonard looked away. "Not yet."

"Did you tell your dad?" At Leonard's hesitance, Penny cocked her head. "They like me, you know. Your mother likes me."

"It's not you," Leonard said. "But if anything goes wrong, they'll blame it on me. Or us. I don't know. I'd rather make sure everything is okay before they find out."

"How do you know Sheldon hasn't told them?"

"I asked Amy to tell him not to."

"Ah," Penny said, nodding. "Smart." She looked in on Gene. "He really loves her, you know? In the way he can."

"Never thought I'd see that day," Leonard said, walking up next to her and leaning on the stall. "But you're right."

They stared in on Gene for a few minutes, watching the cow's tail swing as she ate hay. Then Penny spoke. "Poor Raj."

Leonard gave a little laugh. "He's happier than Bernadette is right now."

It was Penny's turn to laugh. "That's true. I wish he could find someone, though. I mean, it's not just like he's the only one not in any sort of relationship – six of us are in love. Two of us are married, the other four engaged. And then there's him."

"You think about trying your matchmaking skills on him again?" Leonard asked, smiling over at her.

She shrugged. "So far we haven't been lucky. His parents set him up with a lesbian. I set him up with a gold digger. Lalita liked Sheldon."

"So he needs to find someone who he genuinely likes, who isn't greedy, who is straight and attracted to him…" Leonard was counting each requirement on his fingers, "and who won't fall for Sheldon instead."

"I think we've met the only three people in the world who would fall for Sheldon," Penny said. "Ramona," she added when Leonard looked confused.

He nodded. "Ah." His brow furrowed as he thought. "But the other requirements…does such a woman exist?"

"I'm sure she does," Penny said. "There's someone for everyone, you know. It's just hard sometimes to find him or her in the sea of…people. But there's even more women who have the basic requirements; even if it doesn't work out…" Penny raised her eyebrow at him. "Are you thinking of who I'm thinking of?"

"Wonder Woman?" At Penny's glare, Leonard laughed. "What? I mean who else…" he trailed off, then looked at Penny. "Is she single?"

"As of our last texting session."

"Which was?"

Penny thought on it. "Two weeks?"

"Well," Leonard said, "if she's still single in four months when he gets back…"

"Then we put the Leonard and Penny two point oh matchmaking team into action."

**I'd just like to remind readers – especially ones who will read this at a later date – this fic was begun in early 2010 and are canon to the point that the show was at when the story arcs were started. Howard and Bernadette may or may not be married when he goes into space, and I know Howard wasn't with him, and his space trip, if he goes, will definitely go differently then how I've been writing it. I ask that you please keep the dates of chapters in mind when reading and reviewing. :)**


	56. Living Arrangements

**New chapter! Sorry it's so late. We've jumped forward just a couple of days; Leonard and Penny are back in Pasadena. They do not yet know about Amy, Gilda, and Iris' accident.**

**And I still don't own anything.**

"Okay, now I am going to put this gel on your stomach," said the technician. "It's probably going to be cold."

"After that ice, it'll be nothing," Penny said flatly.

"Ice?"

"I slipped when I was visiting family in the Midwest," Penny said. "It was almost a week ago, I'm fine."

The technician nodded and smeared the gel across Penny's stomach, covering it evenly. Leonard watched Penny's face and listened for any sign of widening eyes or an exclamation of how cold the gel was, but she didn't react, not even with a blink. Yet another pregnancy stereotype that was saved for movies and television shows. "Now, I'm going to put this scanner over you, and we should get some good footage of your baby,"

Leonard took Penny's hand. "You excited?"

"Yeah," she said, curling her fingers in his and squeezing his hand gently. "Of course! I want a good look this time," she told the technician, whose name tag said Melissa.

"Now if you'll look to the screen," said Melissa, placing the scanner on the top of Penny's stomach, "you should see your baby's feet. It's not a completely great view, but you can definitely see it. See? Right there."

A few splotches of movement came up on the screen. "Oh!" Penny said, her breath escaping her. "Leonard…look!"

"I see," Leonard said, smiling as he regarded the camera.

The doctor moved the scanner. "And here's your baby in profile."

The image changed to show a tiny head and body, arms bunched up against the little chest, the bent legs moving ever so slightly.

Penny burst into tears.

"It's okay," said Leonard, stroking her head. His eyes were wet, too. It was their first real look at their child.

"Do you want to know the gender?" Melissa asked, smiling.

Penny and Leonard looked at each other, and then Penny nodded. "Please."

"Is this decision unanimous, Dad?" Melissa cocked her head slightly and grinned.

"Yes," Leonard said, squeezing Penny's hand. "Absolutely."

"Well, we've got a pretty good frontal view here, and it looks like you guys have a daughter."

Penny choked up instantly. "It's a girl?" Just then, the image showed the baby sticking a foot out and kicking. Penny's eyes widened. "I felt that!" She looked at Leonard. "Just as I saw it, I felt that! Oh…oh my God…" she trailed off and her throat jerked as she tried to keep in the tears.

"That's amazing," Leonard said, using his free hand to take his glasses off and wipe his eyes. "A little girl." He looked down at Penny and smiled, and they both laughed a little, a happy laugh. He bent down and kissed her, and she wrapped an arm around his neck. "I love you," she whispered.

"You too, you too," he repeated, kissing her forehead again. "God," he said, wiping his eyes. "I don't get this emotional, I swear!"

Melissa smiled, changing the image a bit again. "Here you can see the feet a little better…" she shifted the scanner once again.

They smiled and looked back at the screen. Leonard supposed that the entertainment programs that showed couples getting emotional over a sonogram did so because they wanted parents to relate, not to overgeneralize. Because he and Penny were not typical by nearly any means, and this was enough to send both of them into happy tears. He looked down at her again, loving her more, if that was possible. He didn't understand how simply learning something that had been true since the moment of conception could make him feel this way. And he had a feeling he'd love her even more once their daughter was born.

Maybe, he thought, that was why they said "the miracle of birth." Not simply for the event itself, but for the effect the event had on the relationships it involved.

* * *

><p>"So do you guys want to know?" Penny asked later that day when the girls met her in her apartment for Healthy Pregnancy Food.<p>

"As you already told us that you aren't about to die, I assume this is regarding the sex of the baby?" Amy asked.

Penny gave her a playful glare. "Yes, that's probably a good assumption."

"Oooh tell me," Bernadette said.

"Do we want to know?" Amy asked the microbiologist. "Is knowing better than the element of surprise?"

"There's no 'we'," Bernadette said. "We're not a couple, Amy."

Amy looked hurt. "I am of course aware of that. But I thought friends had the same secrets."

"If that's true, you'd better ask to be told," Penny said. "Because I know."

"Fine," Amy said, sighing. She jumped onto the bar stool. "Does the baby have a penis?"

Both blonde women burst out laughing at the same time. "Has _anyone_ asked it like that before?" Bernadette asked Penny.

"I have no idea," Penny said. "You both want to know?" The girls nodded. "Well, we're gonna have us a new edition to ladies night!"

"I suppose I'll not be welcome at Ladies Night?"

The girls looked over at the door. "Hey, future Daddy," Bernadette said teasingly. Then she frowned. "Did that sound sexual?"

Leonard looked uncomfortable at that notion. "…no?"

"Good answer," Penny said, grinning.

"Technically the baby is already in on our girly outings," Amy said. "As she is of course transported in your…oh!" Amy looked pleased. "It's a girl!" she told Bernadette happily.

Bernadette looked at the neurobiologist without blinking. "I know, genius." She took the two steps between herself and Penny and threw her arms around the waitress. "That's fantastic!"

"Don't you love how the smartest one here took the longest to realize that?" Penny said, grinning at Leonard from across the room as she hugged the microbiologist.

"Cut me some slack, I've been through a lot!" Amy said. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Amy looked uncomfortable. "Um…but I won't bring my…childhood memories into this."

Bernadette glanced at her, then back at Penny. "A _girl_!" she reiterated, hugging her once again.

Penny hugged her back. "I would have been happy with either, but for some reason knowing that this is my daughter in there is just making me…" she let go of her friend with one hand to wipe her eyes. "I can't explain it."

"Well, I hope you're ready to do more parenting than you would have with a son," Amy said. "With a boy, you just have to worry about one penis. With a girl, you have to worry about all of them."

"Amy!" Penny said, shocked. "I have like fifteen years before I have to worry about that!"

Amy looked at Penny, her turn to look shocked. "Fifteen years. Really?"

"But we're not talking about me right now," Penny said, brushing the topic aside. "We're talking about the fact that I have a little baby girl on the way. And that I won't have to listen to you say 'penis' every ten seconds."

"Now we can paint the nursery pink!" Amy said happily. "You guys are still taking the apartment upstairs, right?"

Leonard was staring at Penny with his arms folded. "Fifteen?"

"Yes," Penny said in response to the girls, ignoring Leonard's question. "And it's two rooms, like Leonard and Sheldon's apartment. But if we do do that, it won't be until after she's born. So no decorating yet. Were you still interested in taking this apartment, Amy?"

"Well," Amy said. "I'm going to be living with Sheldon, but Raj has expressed an interest in it, according to Raj according to Howard according to Bernadette here."

"You just made that very complicated," Bernadette said, laughing.

"You're living with Sheldon?" Penny asked. "When is that going to start?"

"When you and Leonard move into 4B permanently," Amy said. "What's going to happen when they move to a two bedroom?" Bernadette asked.

"5B will be available in six months when that guy moves," Penny said. "If we get that one, we'll be in the same building, so not much will change. And I think Raj said to me at one point that if I ever leave this place, he wants it."

"Actually, he brought it up again when I talked to him and Howard last night," Bernadette said.

"He just brings that up?"

"Leonard, honey," Penny said, "you can come in. No need to stand in the door."

"Of course things will be different!" Amy said. "Since Sheldon and I are going to marry for free restaurant food, it makes sense that we'll live in separate rooms but at the same apartment. And I'll get him to share a bed eventually. I'm sure."

Penny and Bernadette exchanged looks, and then Penny shifted her focus to Leonard in the door. "Seriously. Come in or get out."

"Does he get that a lot?" Amy asked.

Bernadette nudged her. Amy looked confused. "That crosses a line?"

"Yes."

"Oh." Amy nodded to them. "Apologies."

"I like this new nudging system," Leonard said, nodding. "I'll see you guys later." He gave a small wave and disappeared across the hall.

"So anyway," Penny said, trying to make some sense of the conversation, "Raj wants this one?"

"Yes…you do know that you don't actually own this apartment," Bernadette said. "Right?"

"Yes," Penny said. "But look, the tenants in 5B are moving to Maine two months after the baby is born. We've already put in for their apartment. If we have people interested in this one early on, that greatens their chances of getting it. And I'd rather it be Amy or Raj than some strange transvestite."

"No worries," Amy said. "I think each apartment only gets one of those during its period of usefulness."

"You know about that?" Penny said.

"Penny," Amy said, very seriously, "Everyone knows about that."

"Ah." Penny nodded. "Okay."

"So do you want to go out tonight?" Bernadette asked. "There's supposed to be live music in the park."

Penny shrugged. "I don't know, it sounds fun, but I'm kinda tired."

"You were too tired to go out yesterday, too!" Amy said "Are you getting sick? Should I run some tests?"

Penny smiled. "Amy, I'm fine. I've just been tired these past few days, that's all. Just had a long drive and then an appointment."

"Well, okay," Bernadette said. "Just don't hole up in this apartment for the rest of your pregnancy, okay?"

Penny rolled her eyes. "We'll see how I feel tomorrow."

"You will feel energetic tomorrow," Amy said. "And you will hang out with us."

"I'm a Toydarian," Penny said. "Mind tricks don't work on me. Only money."

Bernadette and Amy looked confused. "Okay, seriously," Penny said. "_Star Wars_? The guys would have loved that." She hesitated. "Okay, it's from one of the new movies, so the guys would have _liked_ that."

"My advice?" Bernadette said. "Save the _Star Wars_ quoting for when you're with them."

Penny raised her eyebrows in mock annoyance. "Clearly I'll have to."


	57. Burning Up

**Aaaand it's New Chapter Time! Just a small heads up, next week and the beginning of the week after might show a change in my posting pattern since I've got finals coming up. But I won't go more than a few days without updating. : )**

**And I still don't own anything.**

Leonard came into Penny's bedroom and smiled. "You've got some friends come to visit you."

Penny was sitting cross legged at the head, reading a magazine. "Who?"

"Who do you think?" Leonard said. "Here's a hint – one calls you Bestie and the other is married due to your matchmaking skills."

"It's us!" Amy announced as she and Bernadette appeared behind Leonard. "And we brought board games!"

Penny couldn't help but smile. "Why?"

"You haven't wanted to go out these past few days," Bernadette said. "So we thought of a safe, fun…"

"Debatably fun."

"_Debatably_ fun way of staying in and hanging out," Bernadette said. "Look, Sorry!"

Penny was still feeling a bit out of it, but she couldn't help but smile at her friend's enthusiasm as she shook the box in an attempt to make the board game more inviting. "Great. Set up on the coffee table and I'll meet you out there."

"I win again," Leonard said, smiling. "I kick some serious Tusken Raider ass at this game."

"You know it's not Star Wars Sorry, right?" Amy asked. She looked at Penny. "He knows it's not Star Wars Sorry, right?"

"Yes, he does," Penny said. She looked at Leonard. "You do, right?" He gave her a look. "Yes, he does," she said, smiling. "Well guys, it's been fun, but I think I'm going to turn in."

"It's ten-thirty," Leonard said, confused. "Are you turning into a lazy pregnant woman on us?"

"Maybe," she said, smiling and kissing the top of his head. "I'll see you later."

"Do you want your water bottle?" Leonard asked, picking up the nearly full plastic container and holding it out."

"Eh," Penny said, waving it off. "Too lazy to go back and get it."

"She's been so lethargic these past couple of days," Bernadette said. "She should realize that it's going to get a lot worse in terms of being uncomfortable."

"Don't make her think about that now," Leonard said. "She gets stressed enough already; she'll adjust as she needs to. She has before."

"That's why I said it after she left the room," Bernadette said matter of factly. "Do you want to play one more?"

"I don't know if I want to risk breaking my streak," Leonard said.

"It's Sorry, Leonard, not an NFL championship."

Leonard cocked his head. "Which is why I have a streak."

"Excellent point," Amy conceded. "Still one more?"

"I'm actually going to go soon," Bernadette said. "But first, Leonard, I brought that paper that I'm co – authoring if you want to look at it."

"Oh, yeah, definitely," Leonard said, nodding as she fished it out of her purse. "Let's see." He skimmed the first page. "You actually managed to quote Ralph Waldo Emerson?"

"What can I say," Bernadette said, grinning. "I have a weak spot for literature."

Leonard glanced over the paper for another few minutes before Amy and Bernadette got up to leave. "I'm sure we'll all be eating together tomorrow night at our place," Leonard said as he walked them to the door. "Sheldon's ordering pizza for all of us, so we'd better come hungry or he'll go bat crap crazy."

"I thought Penny had an aversion to pizza."

"So did she," Leonard said. "But we walked by a pizza place yesterday and she was okay. Now it's cravings."

"Her new aversion must be to the vegetables," Amy said, pointing to the nearly full bowl on the coffee table. "I didn't see her eat any."

"I guess she's just food moody," Bernadette said, grinning.

Leonard smirked. "So you'll be there?"

"Sounds good," Bernadette said, waving at him as they headed for the stairs.

Leonard was smiling as he entered Penny's bedroom. Just a few years ago he'd been so awkward around women and now he was spending the evening with three (or four, depending on if one counted the baby) of them, playing board games and actually having a good time. It still seemed a little odd to do it with that much ease, even after all this time, but it was definitely nice.

Leonard sat on the edge of the bed and leaned over to kiss Penny's hot cheek and brush hair away from her face. She opened her eyes for a moment to look at him, and then closed them again with only a "Mmm."

"Are you feeling okay?" he asked her, slightly concerned with how warm her cheek had felt against his lips. She didn't respond, at least not verbally. Her head moved slightly. He put his hand on her forehead and his eyebrows shot up. "Penny, you're sick!"

"No, just tired," she mumbled.

"No," Leonard said, standing up. "Not just tired. You're burning up. Why didn't you say something?"

"Just tired."

"I'm taking you to the ER," Leonard said, beginning to panic. He'd be worried about her in any situation, but knowing that the baby could be harmed in a higher temperature elevated his concern exponentially. He spun on his heel and moved into the bathroom, grabbing a thermometer and shaking it down. He stuck it in Penny's mouth, tilted her head so she wouldn't choke, and ran for the door, leaving it open as he sprinted down the stairs, nearly falling twice before overtaking Bernadette and Amy in the lobby.

"Bernadette!" He said. "Penny's sick. Can you bring your car to the doors so we can get her to the hospital?"

"Fever?" Bernadette asked. "I'm going." She pulled the keys out of her purse and jogged out the doors.

"Wait!" Leonard called when Amy started to follow her.

"What?"

"I need you to help me carry her down. I just ran down these stairs and I can't run up again and still carry her down."

"Oh, right," Amy said, moving right behind him as they started back up the flights. "Did you notice anything about her before?"

"Just that she was tired," Leonard said. "But like you guys I attributed it to just being pregnant. But she's burning up."

"That's not good for the baby!" Amy said, pushing past Leonard and continuing up the stairs.

"Think I don't know that?" Leonard asked her as he picked up the pace.

"Bestie!" Amy cried as she entered the bedroom.

"Hey," Penny said quietly, opening her eyes and smiling. "I thought you went home."

"Not with you and the girl – fetus in danger," Amy said. "Come. We're going to the emergency room."

"I'm just tired."

"Bullshit." Amy straightened up and assumed a shocked expression. "I've been told I have no filter, and yet it is still the first time I've said that. Anyway…" she flung the sheet off of Penny and slid her arm under the sick woman's knees. Leonard cocked his head. "How is this going to work? Two of us can't carry her. That's dangerous." He slid her shirt up and put a hand on her stomach. Her skin was too hot for his liking. And although he knew the baby didn't kick all the time, no baby did, "now would be a really great time for you to move, little girl."

"This would be a really great time for the elevator to work, too." Amy said thoughtfully. "Can you walk, Bestie?"

"Been walking for decades," Penny said, "I'm fine."

Leonard noticed the thermometer on the sheet where Penny's head was. He picked it up, looked at it, and held it in front of Penny's face, putting a hand on her cheek so her eyes opened. "This is fine? For our daughter?"

Penny squinted at it, and when she saw the reading her eyes grew wide. "Oh my God." She sat up and rose to her feet and instantly dropped back down onto the bed. "Oh, I'm lightheaded."

"Come here," Leonard said, putting a hand behind her back and the other on her arm. "Let's go downstairs, Bernadette will drive us to the hospital, okay?"

"Mmmhmm," Penny said, nodding. She put a hand on her stomach and her head on Leonard's shoulder as they moved down the stairs. After one flight, Amy scooted by them. "I'll walk in front of you. If Penny falls forward, she and the baby will hit me and not a brick wall."

"Leonard…" Penny said, trailing off. "I'm tired."

"I know," he said, squeezing her gently. "You're lethargic. You can rest in the car, okay?" Penny bit her lip, and Leonard saw tears in her eyes. "It's going to be okay," he said, reaching up with his free hand to wipe the tears from her eyes. "It's going to be okay."

**I believe I have just hit 100K. Thanks to all my readers and reviewers, with and without accounts. :) I see the hits, I see the visits, and I appreciate every last one of you!**


	58. Stay Out of the ER

**Not really anything to say in this author's note aside from thank you to everyone congratulating me on the word count, thank you, once again, to all my reviewers, and a very Happy Earth Day, everyone!**

**Oh right, and I still don't own anything. *dramatic sigh***

In the twenty minutes it took to get to the hospital, Penny's condition became more obvious. She kept her eyes closed more and more of the time and didn't talk back to Leonard or the girls when they spoke to her. She wasn't entirely unresponsive, but she wasn't exactly aware, either. Leonard slid her shirt up and fanned her stomach with his hands, so terrified for the both of them that he felt nauseated despite the new medicine that usually allowed him to sit wherever he had to in the car. But this time, sitting on the back seat with Penny ill beside him, his fear was greater than the medicinal powers. And he didn't understand how she could get worse so fast. Maybe now that she'd realized she was sick she was showing it more; maybe she had something that caused her condition to get worse exponentially. Or she was like wild animals that instinctively hid the fact that they weren't feeling well until they were too ill to do so.

Either way, Leonard was terrified. If they lost this child he knew how severely depressed Penny would become. He knew she'd blame herself for the rest of her life, and he also knew that, with it taking so long for them to get pregnant in the first place, odds were very good that it'd never happen again.

He wasn't even allowing himself to think about how devastated he would be if their daughter didn't make it. Thinking about it would increase the chances that he'd break, and he had to be strong for the one who would place the blame on herself.

"You're gonna be okay, he said to her in a low, and what he hoped was a comforting, voice as he stroked her hair. "Everything's going to be okay."

At the hospital, Penny was put in a wheelchair and brought to a room where she was hooked up to an I.V. and examined by a doctor. Leonard, Amy, and Bernadette stood nearby. "Please tell me she's going to be okay," Leonard said. "Both of them. Please. Even if it's not true, I don't care." He ran over and grabbed the doctor's lab coat. "Lie to me!"

"Take it easy there, Drama," Amy said in a deadpan. She looked at the doctor. "But seriously, are they going to be okay?"

"Well, her temperature is barely a degree above normal now," said the doctor. "So she's cooled down considerably. We're rehydrating her, and we have a regular fetal heartbeat. So so far, so good."

"Oh thank Cow," Leonard said, sliding down the wall to a sitting position. The doctor gave him an odd look but said nothing.

"So she's going to be okay?" Bernadette asked.

"Her temperature is fluctuating ever so slightly," said the doctor. "As long as it doesn't spike, we should be fine. She's not entirely conscious now, but she's not in a coma either."

"So it would be pretty accurate to say she's sleeping."

The doctor smiled, looking a bit embarrassed as he nodded at Bernadette. "If she wakes up, you'll know her fever has broken. I've got two children to go look at now," he added. "I'll be back in about ten mintues – she should be fine for that amount of time. But I'll have a nurse pop in just to make sure."

"Are you absolutely sure?" Leonard asked. "Doctor," he added as if using the professional term would gain him access to the man's thoughts.

"Look," he said, pointing to the monitors. "That's Penny's heartbeat. That's the baby's. Odds are they're going to be okay."

"Oh…" hearing the regular beeping on both monitors calmed Leonard down. "Oh, thank you. Thank you so much."

When the doctor had gone, the three of them stood by the bed that Penny rested in. Leonard took her hand and squeezed it. Amy put a hand on her stomach. Bernadette, still not as emotionally stable as she had been when Howard was around, grabbed her other hand and wiped tears from her eyes with the free one. "Do not go gentle into that good night," she said in a tearful voice, looking at Penny's face. "Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

"You are just quoting literature all over the place today," Amy said in a low whisper.

Bernadette wiped her eyes and patted Penny's stomach gently. "Good little girl."

Leonard took one of his hands off of Penny's and put it on her stomach as well, biting his lip. The baby wasn't moving at the present moment, and Leonard closed his eyes to focus on the steady beat of the heart monitors. His eyes opened a few minutes later when Bernadette let out a quiet gasp and he felt Penny move slightly. "Hey, Penny," Leonard said. "You awake?"

"Mmm," she mumbled, opening her eyes. "Ooh, bright lights."

Bernadette looked surprised. "That was fast."

"Not really," Amy said. "She wasn't comatose. She was hot and dehydrated and that made her tired. The I.V. has just made her bounce back."

"Leonard," Penny said opening her eyes again and squinting. "Ugh," she said, closing her eyes again.

"Over here," Leonard said, smiling.

"Is she okay?" Penny asked, rolling her head to one side to see Leonard and opening her eyes without looking directly into the light.

"Heart's beating steady and strong," Leonard told her, squeezing her hand.

Penny blinked hard a couple of times. "It's okay?" She asked, almost in disbelief.

"Yes!" Amy said loudly as Penny simultaneously looked back toward her stomach.

"Did she kick?" Leonard asked, putting a hand on Penny's side. "Did she kick?"

"Yeah," Penny said, shaking her head briefly as if to clear it. "She stopped now," she said when Leonard slid his hand around in an attempt to feel. "What was wrong? Fever?"

"And dehydration," Leonard said, putting a hand on her forehead affectionately. "Always take your water with you, okay?"

She nodded, tears welling up. "How could I have been so stupid?"

"What do you mean?" he asked, thinking that he knew and changing his response from "don't be ridiculous" at the last possible second.

"I've spent the last four months paranoid as hell about every little thing, and the one time, the _one time_ that something is actually wrong, I don't pick up on it." She shook her head. "I'm going to be a terrible mother." She put both hands on her stomach and looked up at the ceiling, beginning to cry. Leonard saw her throat jerk. "I'm sorry, Baby," she whimpered, her still weak body shaking.

"No," Leonard said, his heart aching seeing her so upset. "No, you're not going to be a terrible mother. You're going to do great, you just weren't feeling well these past few days. It happens. It's okay. Nothing happened."

"And if something ever does," Bernadette said, "you have someone who notices things are wrong and gets you help. Between the two of you, this little girl is going to have a perfectly safe, loving childhood. And don't you forget it."

"I'm not on any meds to make me forget stuff," Penny said. "That's bad for the baby." She looked at Leonard, suddenly fearful. "I'm not on any meds to make me forget stuff, am I?" she asked. "That's bad for the baby!"

"No, you're not." Leonard bent down and kissed her on the lips. "It's okay. Nothing happened. We just needed to give you a little boost. It's going to be okay."

She smiled and nodded. "I know. It just feels like everything is going wrong."

"Penny," Leonard said, grabbing both of her hands. "Look at me." Penny focused her eyes on his face. "If everything had gone wrong," he told her, "you would have had ovarian cancer. Or you would have been miscarrying that day in the park. Or you would have gone into preterm labor out on the ice in Nebraska. Or you would have lost the baby tonight. We get scared a lot, but it always works out. At least it always has thus far. Just remember that."

Penny pulled herself into a sitting position and put her face in her hands, crying again. "Oh, Penny," Leonard said, sitting on the bed next to her, using his foot to balance on the floor. "Penny, stop it."

"I'm sorry," she said. She wiped her eyes and leaned against him, crossing her right hand across her body and resting it on his right arm. "I can't help it."

"I know," Leonard said, shifting his weight so he could hold her. Bernadette gently ran her fingers through Penny's hair, and Amy rested her hand on the sick woman's arm, squeezing it gently.

Penny's eyes were still welled up. "I love you guys so much."

"Ma'am?"

The four of them looked toward the door, where one of the nurses stood. "The doctor will be back in a few minutes to check you over and make sure you're temperature is where we'd like it. Because of your pregnancy, we're going to keep you over night, but the official prognosis is very good, for you and for your baby."

Penny looked up at Leonard and smiled, and then looked back at the nurse. "Thank you," she said.

The nurse looked over at Bernadette and Amy and smiled. "You two need to stay out of the ER," she said almost teasingly.

"Ha, yeah," Amy said, pretending to laugh.

Bernadette faked a laugh too, giving the nurse a thumbs up. "Yeah, that's funny…"

The nurse smiled and left.

Penny and Leonard looked at the two women and simultaneously raised their eyebrows. "I need context," Penny said to them.

Leonard nodded. "Seconded."

Amy and Bernadette glanced at each other. "So," Bernadette started, tracing a spot on the floor with her toe. She looked at Amy for help.

The neurobiologist cleared her throat. "So," Amy continued. "Funny story…"


	59. Right There

**I know, I'm so inconsistent with the posting – one day I barely get it up before midnight and another I do as soon as it's a new day. Today is an earlier posting time-actually a few minutes before midnight-because I got in the zone while talking with Amber about writing and wrote this all up. And also because I'm tired and I have a symposium tomorrow so I'd like to get some rest.**

"Let me get this straight," Penny said, speaking slowly. "You almost _died_ last week?"

"And you didn't tell us?" Leonard said.

Amy and Bernadette looked uncomfortable. "It never came up," Bernadette said, shrugging.

"We didn't want to stress you guys out," Amy said, "because you were in Nebraska. And finding out that Gilda and Iris were with me and I was almost drowned…"

"Gilda and Iris were with you?" Penny said. "I think we need more detail than what you just told us."

"Yeah," Leonard said. "I was at the beach and almost died" doesn't really explain all that much."

Amy and Bernadette sighed and filled the couple in; Leonard and Penny smiled at each other when Amy reached the part about Sheldon kissing her. She noticed and grinned. "What?"

"It's just…so strange to think of Sheldon that way," Leonard said, and Penny nodded. "He really loves you."

Amy blushed redder than Penny's face had been upon arrival at the hospital. Yes," she said. "He fell in love with me as I am, but he'd take me no matter what."

"Same thing happened here," Penny said. "Only in reverse. No matter how smart I get, Leonard still loves me."

"That's so sweet," Bernadette said, squeezing Penny's hand.

"Oh, the same would go for you," Leonard said. "Howard would love you even if you got taller."

* * *

><p>The doctor had promised that Penny would feel better within forty eight hours, and she was right. Two days after going to the emergency room and a day before she had to go back to work, she felt better than she had in a long time. Leonard was only working that morning, and then he promised that they could spend the afternoon together doing whatever she wanted. He was skipping Halo Night for her. She felt super loved.<p>

Penny was on the couch reading a magazine when he came back from work, raising an eyebrow when he heard her reading out loud to their daughter. "Are you sure she cares about how to find the perfect manicurist?" he asked, smiling.

"It's never too early to start!" Penny put down the magazine and patted the seat beside her. "C'mere!"

Leonard sat down beside her, giving her a quick kiss on the lips and putting his arm around her. "I got you something," he said, smiling.

Penny cocked her head. "Oh yeah?" she said, looking up at him. "What?"

Leonard reached into his pocket and handed her a velvet box. "Here you go."

Penny looked at him curiously. "We're already engaged."

He smiled. "I know that, just open it."

Penny couldn't help but keep smiling even though she didn't know what he'd gotten her; he looked so excited about it. "Okay," she said, cracking open the box and holding it up. Her hand went to her mouth. "Oh…"

The necklace inside held a picture; a picture that she'd become so very familiar with. "The ultrasound," she said, drawing it out of the box and holding it in her palm. "It's beautiful." She shook her head. "How did you find out you could do this?"

He shrugged. "I asked around. The jeweler where Sheldon got Amy's tiara gave me a number."

Penny smiled. "I love you."

He shrugged. "Well, you know…"

Penny put the necklace in the box and set it on the coffee table, leaning over and kissing Leonard. He kissed her back, sliding his hands along her side and tugging her closer as she put her arms around his neck, deepening the kiss and scooting even closer to him, sliding a hand up to rest on his neck temporarily before re - positioning it around his back.

Leonard slid his hands under her shirt and moved them up her back, finding her bra and unhooking it as she moved her hands from his neck to inside his jacket. In response to his removal of her bra, Penny shifted her weight so she was almost completely on his lap reached between them to unbutton his pants, her stomach pressed against him hindering her usual efficiency at this particular stage, reminding both of them at how much happened in the past two weeks, despite barely noticing a change in her pregnancy from the outside.

As she got the button free, the baby kicked firmly against her the front of her stomach.

Leonard turned his head to separate their lips and removed his hands from under Penny's shirt, grabbing her hands away from where they were attempting to unzip his pants and easing her away from him.

She frowned. "What?"

Leonard moved his hands to her side and gently pushed her to her own spot on the couch, standing up and backing away a few steps. "I can't do this."

Penny let out a breath and leaned back against the couch. "What do you mean?" she asked, reaching under her shirt and tugging her bra free from where it had been bunched at her side.

Leonard's mouth was open slightly, and he gesticulated toward her. "I can't do this," he repeated, as if that made it any clearer. At this moment, he was at such a loss for words that he was shocked that he'd ever been eloquent enough to get through his doctoral defense.

"It's not like you haven't done it before," she said in an attempt to tease, offering a smile as she did so. When that didn't appear to comfort her boyfriend, she frowned. "What is it?"

"I…well, um…I…"

"Is it me?" Penny asked. "Do you not want me like this?"

She looked so hurt that it just about broke Leonard's heart. "No," Leonard said quickly, waving his hands in front of him. "I want you. You know that." He shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and looked at the floor. "It's just…"

She stood up, walking over to him and putting her hands on his chest. "What?" she asked.

Leonard gestured toward her again. "It's just…" he tried. Stopping, he took a deep breath and then let it out. "It's the baby. The baby is _right there_."

Understanding flowed into Penny's eyes, mixing in with the confusion. "Oh," she said, looking down and putting her hands on her stomach. "You know," she said quietly, "we _have_ had sex since I got pregnant."

"Not a whole lot," Leonard said. "And not since she started moving." He suddenly became aware that his pants were still unbuttoned and Penny's pregnant belly was right in front of him. He removed his hands from his pockets, buttoned up, and then put them on Penny's upper arms, rubbing them gently. "I love you," he said, holding her gaze. "I just…" he closed his eyes and shook his head. "She's right there, Penny. She's kicking. It's like she's saying 'hey, Daddy, don't forget about me in here'!"

"She doesn't know what's going on," Penny said. "And it can't hurt her; she's completely blocked off from everything. All the books say so. I'm sorry," she said suddenly. "I feel like I'm pressuring you."

"You're not," he said, "I promise." She raised her eyebrows slightly and smiled, and he smiled back, leaning in to kiss her again. _It's okay, Leonard,_ he told himself. _She's right. The baby has no idea what we're doing. Couples do this all the time. _We _do this all the time._ Maybe if he got her really into it, more than she was already, he could forget his reservations and concerns and lose himself. He slid his arms around her and moved his mouth from hers to that spot at the base of her neck, and smiled to himself when he felt her shudder and tangle her fingers more tightly into the material of his jacket, reminding him of the first kiss he'd ever initiated, back at their very first date, when he felt her fingers pinch his suit when he'd kissed her before dinner, giving him confidence that she felt the same attraction that he did.

The baby kicked again. Leonard ignored it, sliding his hands up her back again as he continued to kiss her neck, feeling her knees buckle as she reacted to his kisses while awkwardly trying to get closer despite her protruding stomach keeping them from completely melting against one another; they were doing the best that they could and for several minutes they kissed without concern.

And then the baby kicked once more, twice more, and forcefully, before doing a somersault.

And Leonard, his own stomach pressed tightly against his girlfriend's, felt all of those movements. And it was just too much.

He pulled back again, terrified that if he let Penny go she'd lose her balance; luckily they were only a few steps from the couch. He eased her down onto the arm, not knowing where to look as he did so; the sight of her stomach, after what they were working on doing, was too much for his eyes to handle, and he knew her face would be a mixture of frustration and confusion and hurt and he couldn't bear to see that either.

"I'm sorry," he said, shaking his head and turning for the door. She didn't even call out to him, at least not that he could hear, and he exited her apartment and moved quickly across the hall, letting the door slam behind him. Thankfully Sheldon wasn't home.

Leonard power walked across the living room, down the hall past the bathroom and Sheldon's room and into his own. He turned to face his bedroom door as it slammed shut, drove his fist into the wall, and spun around, letting himself fall face first down on the bed.

**Don't forget to vote in the poll I have on my profile page! I have two versions written of where Penny gives birth; in one, she plans to have it at a hospital; in another, she plans a home birth. Both are about equal in word count and I like things about both and dislike things about both, so I can't pick. Unless I get a huge inspiration for one of them, I'm going to go with the majority on the poll.**


	60. The Origins of Kissing

**New chapter time! And it's up early again because I don't know how hectic my day will be. I may or may not post on Sunday; I'm sure I'll find the time but I can't guarantee as finals are next week. Ugh. Not looking forward to those. But I AM looking forward to a new ep tonight, and it looks like we get at least one Leonard/Penny scene!**

**Oh yeah, and I don't own one little bitty bit of this show.**

After he had gone, Penny remained perched on the arm of the couch where he had left her so abruptly. Already breathless – kissing Leonard for any real length of time always did that to her and her pregnancy wasn't helping – she had to wait a few minutes to get her respiration under control and the dizziness to stop before she could get up and find him. Upon standing, the dizziness returned. "Damn pregnancy," she said aloud to no one, putting a hand on her forehead and waiting a moment before exiting the apartment and heading across the hall, hoping that he didn't lock any doors.

He hadn't. Penny cracked open his bedroom door and her heart ached a bit when she saw him curled up on the bed. She hadn't really thought about what she'd find him like, but she supposed he'd be pacing the floor, just sitting there, or flat on his back staring at the ceiling. The fact that he was curled up, looking so small, made her feel terrible.

"Sweetie," she said, coming over to the bed and climbing onto it. He didn't look at her. She put a hand on his side. "Leonard."

He turned his head. He looked stressed. "I don't want to talk," he said turning away from her again.

"Leonard!" Penny said louder, realizing how stressed her own voice sounded. "Talk to me." She let out a shaky breath and realized how she was struggling to hold back tears. "Talk to me, it's okay."

Leonard sat up, still refusing to look at her. "She's right there," he said again, as if Penny was having a hard time understanding. "Right there."

"Leonard," Penny said. "As much as I can appreciate what you've got going on, the baby is _not_ close enough for you to dent her head."

Leonard's shoulders shook slightly in badly concealed laughter and he looked at her, appearing amused. "That's not what I'm worried about," he said, reaching over and putting his hand on her stomach, spreading his fingers out over it.

Penny looked down at his hand resting on her bump. "I'm only five months along," she reminded him. "I'm going to get a lot bigger. I'm going to have to pee every five minutes and I'm going to sweat a lot. I'm going to get a lot less sexy than I already am, you might as well take what you can get before I'm carrying a watermelon instead of a cantaloupe."

"Penny," Leonard said, shaking his head. He looked embarrassed, and Penny scooted closer and put her hands on his shoulders, tilting her head to see his face better. "Leonard, you don't have to be ashamed. I understand. I don't look the way I used to. Gilda talked to me about this the other day, and it's hard to accept, yes, but I'm okay."

"You don't understand," Leonard said, getting off the bed and walking a few steps before stopping and putting his hands on his hips.

Penny stood. "What? I can't understand if you don't tell me."

"You don't look fat and ugly," he said, turning around. "You're carrying my baby. _My baby._ Do you have _any idea_ how attractive that makes you to me? I don't care if you've gained weight, that's supposed to happen. You've been so happy looking, since you got out of the ER especially, and you're carrying in way that is actually _cute_, and right now I find you so ridiculously attractive that I'm ashamed of it because you're growing a little person in there and I feel selfish for wanting you like this. Biologically, I've accomplished all I'm supposed to with you and I feel guilty for continuing to want to be with you when right now your body needs to focus on the kid. Then you add in that I can't shake this crazy fear that the baby is going to know what's going on and it's just so damn frustrating and confusing."

Penny wanted to walk toward him and put her arms around him and tell him that he wasn't selfish and wasn't wrong, but she found herself unable to do anything but ease back down onto the bed and stare ahead, not really seeing anything.

All of a sudden – though she didn't know how much time had passed – Leonard was next to her, standing alongside the bed and looking at her. She let her eyes focus and looked up at him. He hesitated, smiled, and then sat down next to her. "And now I feel like an idiot," he said. "That sounded ridiculous."

She shook her head and looked at him. "You're not an idiot. And I of all people shouldn't think of you like that. I've read the books, you know. This is normal. We'll go talk to the doctor; will that make you feel better?"

He shrugged. "Maybe. I don't know." He shrugged. "We don't need to go talk to a bunch of people just to make me feel better about having sex. I'm not a hound dog. No matter what Sheldon will tell you."

"Hey," she said. "I want you, too. It's not like I want to waddle around knitting all day while you just want to paw at me."

Leonard frowned. "Paw at you?"

"Do they not use that phrase in Jersey?" she asked, smiling.

"They use that phrase in Nebraska?"

"You know what I mean. And I know you're afraid of hurting the baby, or doing that with the baby here, but she really doesn't know what's going on. And some of the books say that us doing it can make her relax, or even rock her to sleep."

"I know," Leonard said. "I read that too. It's just going to take me a little bit to get used to the fact that she's moving in there." He looked over at her and smiled, looking down at her hands and taking both of them. "But never think it's you, Penny," he said. "I'd find you attractive even if you had Cheetos in your hair. The first time we almost slept together you were in sweats."

"Hey now," Penny said. "Sweats are hot."

He nodded. "They are. And you transferring a lime to my mouth _while_ wearing sweats?" He let out a breath and shook his head, smiling. "Even hotter."

"You know that's how kissing may have originated?" Penny asked. "Animals transferring food? Mostly mothers and fathers to their babies, and then it evolved into a sign of love."

Leonard raised his eyebrows. "Penny Soon – to – be – Hofstadter, you are _attractive_ when you spout of science facts." He leaned over and kissed her; she put her hands up to his face to hold him in place and he rested one hand on the bed and the other on her knee.

"Mmmmm." Penny pulled back slightly and smiled at him before pushing her nose into his cheek. He moved a little closer and curled his arms around her, turning his head to push his own nose against hers. Then Penny kissed him again, attempting to lean back and shift out of the sitting position.

Leonard pulled back again. "I said it'd take some time for-"

Penny shook her head, shifting her weight so she was lying in the correct direction on the bed and pulling him toward her by tugging on one of his sleeves. "Come on," she said, "it hasn't been so long since our beta test that you've forgotten what it's like to just make out, has it? Can we give that a try? Or a do?"

"As long as we don't have to work out the probability of success on a board first."

Penny acted annoyed. "Can we not bring Gilda into this? Statistics intimidate me."

"Sorry." Leonard smiled and crawled over to her, lying on his side facing her while she did the same, taking her hands and stretching his neck out slightly so his lips could reach hers. As she kissed him back, she wiggled closer and let go of his hands to put her own on his chest. He slid his own over her side and drew her as close as their daughter would allow. "See?" she whispered, placing his hand on her stomach. "This is nice. We're a family."

Every time she said that, every time he thought it himself, Leonard had to stop for a moment and really comprehend that. _A family._ When he'd first met her, he was wondering if maybe, one day, they could hook up. And he fantasized about them having babies, but he didn't totally disbelieve Sheldon's comment about them existing only in his mind. And then he got to know her, and she got to know him. And then he fell in love with her. And then she fell in love with him. And no matter how many scares they'd had, no matter how many hesitations and overreactions and bug reports they had to get through, they were here now.

Leonard pulled back and ran his hand lightly from her shoulder to her hip and back again. "Can I say something really sappy?" he asked her.

She smiled, patting his chest with the palm of her hand. "Yes," she said, smiling.

He looked embarrassed. "Sometimes I look at you and I can't believe a person could love someone that much," he said. "And sometimes that still gets me."

She smiled. "You sap," she said fondly, pushing her nose against his cheek again. Her hand slid up to the side of his neck again. "But I know what you mean," she whispered, kissing him again before shifting her weight, cuddling close, and closing her eyes. "And I forgive you. I actually ought to expect those feelings – I _have_ listened to 'You're Having My Baby' before." Her smile turned to a yawn. "We pregnant ladies are pretty damn special." She yawned again, putting a hand over her mouth. "And if you ever forget it, I'll give you the silent treatment. And I know how to make a scene."

"You tired?" he asked her, tucking some of her hair behind her ear.

"Am I being hormonal?"

"What?"

Penny cocked her head. "You asked if I was tired, I was talking about making a scene. Am I being hormonal?"

"Um...no?"

"Then how did you know I was tired?"

"You yawned. Twice."

"I did?" Penny thought back. "Oh."

"I'll have to add memory loss to the list of pregnancy symptoms I'm sure Gilda has all board-ed out for you," he joked.

Penny put her hair behind her ears. "One," she said, "I said to leave Gilda out of this. Two, I thought board-ed wasn't a word. But, you know, you're the genius." She yawned again.

Leonard smiled fondly. "Need a nap?"

"Mmmhmm," she said rolling on her side, facing away from him. "Spoon me?"

He scooted closer, his left arm over the top of hers, their fingers linking, his right arm under his head. His knees tucked up under hers and she moved their hands down to rest on her stomach, and her shirt had ridden up in the repositioning so Leonard let his thumb down, off of her hand to rest on her warm skin, this time feeling at peace in knowing that their daughter was right there.

**The next chapter will have at least one of the other storylines in it – promise! : )**


	61. Under Attack

**I got up this morning, did concept checks for my bio final Monday, and then decided it was time to take a break. So I wrote up the next chapter! Now you might not get another one until Tuesday night, but then I'll be totally, for sure back on schedule.**

**And I still own nothing.**

"So did the doctor give Leonard any piece of mind?" Bernadette asked, walking over to her couch from the kitchen area and handing Penny a mug of hot chocolate. "You're _sure_ you can drink this?"

"_Yes_," she said. "Would I really be chancing anything at this point?"

"I guess not," Bernadette said. "It _is_ cold today."

Penny took a sip, nodding, and then rested the mug on the coffee table. "The doctor told Leonard that we'd be fine, that nothing would harm the baby, and that as long as _I_ wasn't in pain that we are okay up until my water breaks."

"Just a few months away!" she said, grinning.

"Just a little over three," Penny confirmed, leaning back and putting her hands on her sides.

"So it all worked out," Bernadette said, taking a drink of her own hot chocolate. Penny was quiet. "Or…or not?"

She smiled and shook her head. "Well, the 'as long as she's not in pain' thing made him remember the last time, you know, when we had the cancer scare, and now he's afraid to risk _that_." She sighed. "But we talked about it when we got home. He said just give him a little time. It's our daughter that's stopping him more than anything else, and he knows he overthinks a lot of things." She looked at her mug, and back to Bernadette, realizing what the microbiologist was wearing. "Why are you in your sad sweats?" She sat up a bit straighter. "Is Howard okay? Howard's okay, right?" She knew he had to be; she wouldn't be joking around with her if anything serious had happened, but she _was_ wearing her sad sweats.

"It's not much," Bernadette confirmed, "they just caught him spending a lot of time talking to me in the communications room, and that kinda thing is, well, really expensive. Like _really_ expensive. So I won't be talking to him for a while."

"Aw, I'm sorry," Penny said, leaning sideways for an awkward hug. "And I've been going on about wanting to sleep with Leonard, and you can't even talk to your husband…"

Bernadette shrugged. "It's okay. My husband's following his dreams, you're pregnant, Amy's getting married, when something happens to one of us, the others don't just stop living. And a lot of stuff is happening at the same time. It happens." She smiled. "Actually," she added, looking thoughtful, "this could help me." She jumped up. "I can help Leonard chill out!" Penny raised her eyebrows. "Yes," Bernadette said excitedly. "Okay, he's been really, really worried about the baby, right?"

"Mmm hmm," Penny said.

"So if you and he do something ridiculous, or crazy, it'll loosen him up a bit." She grinned. "I was stressing about my job when he had me help him at that birthday party, remember?"

"He was trying to relax you?" Penny said. "That really worked out well." She couldn't help but smile in spite of herself. Super Enthusiastic Bernadette was contagious.

She smirked at Penny's comment. "Yeah. Right? But if we can find something just _silly_ for you and him to do…" she trailed off and ran into her room. Penny raised an eyebrow.

Bernadette returned moments later with her laptop and opened it, dropping down next to Penny and opening up the internet. "A Facebook friend of mine was posting a lot of…"

"You're just now friends with Sheldon?" Penny said, cocking her head.

"I got a strike when I joked about him and Amy getting married. It was my third one."

"So you took his class?"

"No. Amy put in a good word for me and I got them lifted. I had to re-friend him myself, but he did his part and accepted."

"Well, good for him," Penny said with a little more than a hint of sarcasm.

"Okay," Bernadette said, pointing to her screen. "Do _this_."

Penny read the instructions, and then looked at Bernadette with her eyes wide. "That is _perfect."_

* * *

><p>Leonard got home from work to find Sheldon and Amy in the living room engaged in a staring contest, Sheldon in his spot, and Amy kneeling on the other side of the coffee table. Without looking away, Sheldon raised his hand in a "live long and prosper" greeting toward Leonard.<p>

"I see you two want to be left alone," he said, starting to back out of the door.

"That would be nice, thank you," Amy said.

Heading across the hall, Leonard dropped his bag down before realizing that Penny wasn't there. That was odd. He looked at the time to be sure, and yes, she ought to be there by now. "Penny?" he said tentatively.

No answer.

Frowning, Leonard noticed a bright object he didn't recognize on the kitchen counter and walked toward it. It was orange, pink and yellow with a hint of black, and as he got closer to it, he realized that one, it was a toy gun, and two, the pink was not a part of the object but rather a sticky note. He pulled it off and read it.

_Leonard._

_This is a nerf stampede gun loaded with ammo. You are under attack. Starting now._

Leonard turned around just in time to see a black and orange 'bullet' come at him from the bedroom, hitting him square in the chest and dropping to the floor. Looking back up, he saw Penny standing in the threshold in light sweatpants and her new maternity Nebraska football shirt that her father had sent her, holding the gun out like the markswoman she was, cocking her head. "There's more where that came from, Hofstadter."

A grin came over his face. "We'll see about _that_!" He grabbed the gun and fired; Penny laughed as she ducked out of the way. He moved toward her, circling around the front of the couch while she attempted to dart around the back. He back tracked, and they stared at each other, the couch in between them. Penny faked moving toward the kitchen and then backed up toward the bedroom again, holding the gun out and firing again. One of the bullets hit Leonard square on the behind, and Penny burst into laughter when he yelped.

In response, Leonard barreled toward her – as much as he could; he wasn't much of a runner; then again, neither was she at the moment – and once she was turned, running around the couch with him chasing her and her stomach out of the way of the bullets, he let three of them fly, one missing, the other two hitting her in the back. She whirled around unexpectedly, panting lightly from the exertion and the agility it required, and shot again, hitting Leonard in the forehead. "Ow!"

She stopped. "You okay?"

It _had_ hurt, but he didn't care. Grinning, he fired the gun again, hitting her in the front of the shoulder, and her response was to lunge at him. He sidestepped, regretting doing so when it occurred to him that she could fall, and felt relief when she righted herself and fired again. They were both laughing by now, Penny's intensified when Leonard tried to respond and discovered he was out of bullets. She looked at him with raised eyebrows and cocked her head. He moved toward her again, and she turned to run, but his arms reached out and caught her, drawing her toward him and wiggling his fingers where he knew she was most ticklish.

She shrieked, playfully stomping her foot against his, not hard enough to hurt but enough to show her protest, and Leonard responded by bending slightly and tickling her behind the knee of the foot that was coming down on his.

"_Stop it!"_ she yelled in fake protest, trying to wiggle out of his grasp. Leonard didn't listen; he knew her serious 'stop' and the fake one. He grinned to himself when she took to hitting his hands with the nerf gun, then dropping the toy to try and pry herself out of his hands. Eventually, she squirmed enough to turn herself around to face him, and they grinned at each other. Leonard loved that grin. It was the one she gave him whenever they had a really good time doing something they didn't normally do. When they finished a round at the shooting range. When they had sex in the ocean. When they messed with Sheldon for a week by putting energy shots into his drinks, leaving their computers open with a browser history of looking up hotels in Anaheim, and then remaining in Penny's apartment while Sheldon made Raj drive him places after work. It was a pleased, happy look of _this worked out well_, and he loved it.

Of course she looked different this time – her face was flushed and she was sweating a bit, the extra weight she was carrying took a bit of a toll on her when she exerted herself, but she they were both smiling, they were both laughing, and Leonard had a feeling that they'd long look back on this surprise as a success.

"You're incredible," he told her, leaning over to kiss her quickly. She laughed and kissed him again. "That was fun," she said, keeping her nose close to his. Feeling the need to kiss her again – she was so close, anyway – Leonard closed the gap between their lips, not totally surprised when she stepped a little closer and slid her arms around her neck. It was her move. He moved his hands from her elbows and slid them around her back. The doctor was right, well, Penny had been right all along. The baby wouldn't know what was going on. It was going to be fine.

After a few minutes of kissing – and moving to the couch – Penny pulled back and shook her head. "Nope."

Leonard furrowed his brow. "Nope?" She laughed, and he realized she was still breathing a bit hard from the gun fight. "You tired?"

She smiled and nodded. "Little bit." She pushed him back so he was lying on the couch in a reclined position and moved herself over so she was lying on him, her back against his front, her head on his chest and her legs hanging off the other end. He slid his hands up around her to keep her steady, and she put her own on top of his and squeezed them gently. "Sheldon's wrong," she said. "We _can_ be comfortable on the couch."

Leonard tipped his head down and kissed the top of hers. "We sure can. Whoa!" he exclaimed a moment or so later. His hands on her stomach, he suddenly felt the baby move, and it didn't feel like the kicks he'd experienced earlier. "What was that?"

He felt Penny tense up a bit as she moved into a sitting position, a hand going behind her to rest on her back. "She must have somersaulted again," she said, using her other hand to swat at Leonard's legs. In response, he drew them closer to him and sat up, giving her her half of the couch. She leaned back slowly, looking as if she expected the pain to get worse any minute, and then her face relaxed once she was leaning against the back. Leonard looked at her cautiously. "Are you okay?"

She nodded, her eyes closed. "I read that during labor the baby's head can be pressing on your spine and cause a lot of back pain."

"You're not even in the third trimester yet," Leonard pointed out. "She's not big enough for that."

"I'm pretty damn close to it," she said. "And _something_ about her position is bugging me."

Leonard leaned over and poked Penny's stomach. She looked at him in confusion. "What are you doing?"

"Trying to get her to move."

Penny looked amused. "Well, she's not listening to you. I hope that's not a sign."

Leonard smiled. "Can I do anything?"

Penny thought for a moment. "Draw me a bath?"

"Okay." He got up, kissed her head, and went into her bathroom, smiling at all the sticky notes on her mirror reminding her of various pregnancy related things; like she'd forget. He filled the bathtub with warm water and turned to get her from the couch to find her standing in the doorway. "You enjoying watching me slave over you?" he joked. She smiled. "Help me get in."

"Don't you want to-"

"No."

"Okay." He grabbed her arm as she stepped, into the tub and eased her down. She rested her head on the back and smiled up at him. "That feel good?" he asked, dropping down to his knees next to her.

She reached out with her left hand and rested it on the side of the tub for him to grab. "Yeah. It does."

He took it in both of his. "Good."

They remained quiet for a minute or two, Penny staring at the ceiling, and then she let her head drop to the side facing him. "It's going to be really hard getting out of this tub with a baby and waterlogged sweats."

"I asked if you wanted-"

"I know," she said, holding up her other hand and smiling. "I know." She looked up at the ceiling again. "Damn, I hope she has your brains."

Leonard nodded, trying to keep a completely straight face. "Me too."


	62. As Right as Pi

**This is how Nicole writes when she is stressed. I'm lucky Penny's entered her third trimester so I have an excuse for writing "moody". :D**

**I still own nothing. And I'm super excited for the episode Thursday. Not that that has anything to do with me owning anything. I still don't. Balls.**

Penny dropped Leonard's spare key in the bowl before remembering that it was hers. Retrieving it, she stuck it in her purse before lying down on the couch. She liked this couch better than the one in her apartment; it was bigger and let her stretch out.

She was so tired nowadays. Her back hurt and her feet hurt worse and the bright sunlight gave her a headache. And it was still going to get worse before it got better, what with a little under three months to go.

She and Leonard had finally slept together again a few hours after their nerf gun fight, which, upon Amy finding out, Penny had to endure a fifteen minute interrogation on whether sex really _was_ sometimes better during pregnancy before Bernadette had showed up to tell her that Penny didn't need to be grilled on that sort of thing. But the microbiologist was distracted as well, worrying about how things were going up in space and distressed that she couldn't talk to her husband. And Gilda hadn't been hanging out with them much in the past two weeks or so. The whole atmosphere in her social circle was _tired_, and that didn't help Penny keep her energy up. The increasing heat wasn't helping either.

"Penny?"

She opened her eyes. Sheldon stood at the end of the hallway, holding a pile of papers. "Hey, Sheldon," she mumbled.

"That's my spot."

"Uh-huh."

Sheldon was silent, shifting uncomfortably. "This is the part where you ask me if I'm planning on sitting there."

Penny sighed. "Why? I know the answer. You're not planning on sitting here but you don't want me to disrupt your zero, zero, zero. Zero."

Sheldon twitched. "But you always ask!" Penny's eyes were closed again. He head hurt _so bad…_ "Penny!" Sheldon barked. She cringed at his tone; her headache wasn't getting any better. "Ask me!"

Penny moaned and sat up. She decided to appease him; Sheldon appeared to be upset about something more than his spot. "Sheldon, are you planning on sitting here?"

"No."

"What's wrong?"

The question appeared to throw Sheldon off guard. He regarded her incredulously. "What's wrong? What isn't wrong? Everything's changing and I don't like it!"

It was Penny's turn to be confused and a little shocked. He had Amy, didn't he? She patted the seat beside her, the left side of the couch that was now vacant. "Do you want to talk?"

Sheldon sank into the seat, seeming unaware that Penny had spoken. "Everything is changing, Penny," he said. "My life is of the peaceful Naboo, suddenly occupied by the trade federation. And you-you're Nute Gunray!" He pointed at her. "No. No, I'm worse. I am the Jedi knight, betrayed by his own troopers and his comrade. I am Obi-Wan Kenobi and you're Anakin Skywalker!"

Penny cocked her head, feeling a little hurt. She knew the characters and situations that he was mentioning, and she had no idea how it applied to their lives. "How so?"

"You…this…" Sheldon was frustrated, and he shook his head and motioned to her belly. "You and Leonard, with your ambitions to procreate. Your reunion inspiring Raj and Howard to apply for the NASA project-they'd never have done it without your relationship 'inspiring' them to 'get something out of life.' Who knows where they'll go when they return, and you and Leonard can tell me that you love me all you want, but I know that once that little Niemodian is born you and Leonard won't have time for Halo Night, comic books, and _Star Wars_ marathons."

Penny gave him a sympathetic look. "Aw, Sheldon! Leonard and I will still have time for you. Remember what I told you in the comic book store after he and I had our first fight? We'll _always_ love you."

"And then you told me that you'd never leave and you'd always be there to sing Soft Kitty. I wasn't feeling well a few nights ago, and I had to call my mother to do it because you and Leonard were at some hotel in Anaheim."

Sheldon just looked at her. "I'm going out for a while. If I'm not home tonight, don't you and your other half wait up."

"Are you going to Amy's?" Penny asked.

"Oh," Sheldon said, turning around. "Now you two are interested in what I'm doing. Yes, I'm going to Amy's. She knows what it's like to be left behind."

He let the door slam behind him, the impact knocking the key bowl Penny had disrupted fall to the ground. A moment or two passed; Sheldon flung the door open to pick them up, then looked at Penny and put his fingers to his forehead in an attempt to blow up her head with his mind.

"Oh, will you just _stop_?" she said, grabbing one of her magazines from Leonard's coffee table, rolling it up like a bat, and slinging it across the room. Sheldon jumped out the door and pulled it shut, the magazine unrolling and landing splayed out a few feet from the couch. Penny stared at it for a moment or two, groaned in frustration, and fell back into a lying down position. She hadn't felt particularly hormonal these past six months, but today they seemed to be raging. Earlier that day she'd snapped at Leonard for setting her shoes against the wall with the right one on the left side the previous night. She'd apologized right away, and he'd understood, but she hated that she was getting like this.

She shifted her weight. It was getting harder and harder to be comfortable, and the Braxton Hicks contractions she'd started the day before weren't making it any better. She'd had three, the second four hours after the first, the third coming nearly seven hours after. She knew that they wouldn't be regular for months, but she wished that she could predict when they'd happen. They didn't hurt, of course, Braxtons never did, but they made her even more uncomfortable than she already was.

Penny shifted her weight again and found a position she could tolerate. Then she reached into her pocket, drew out her phone, and dialed a number. "Hello," she said when the desired recipient of the call answered. "This is Penny. I need your help."

* * *

><p>"Sheldon, if you don't talk to me, I can't help."<p>

Amy stood near her couch, her boyfriend sitting on the right end of it, his hands on his knees, staring forward at nothing, and not talking despite the neurobiologist's repeated pleas for conversation. It was unlike him to not have something to say, and that concerned her. "Do you want spaghetti?"

"No."

It was a word, at least. Amy came around and sat next to him. "Sheldon," she said, trying to mimic Penny's gentle voice. Penny would make a good mother. She had the right voice. Amy wasn't sure how close hers sounded, but she hoped it was enough. "Sheldon, talk to me." _He's like a baby deer,_ Mary Cooper had apparently told Leonard. _You gotta let him come to you._ Well, he had come to her. And now it was time to gently pry.

"Why bother?" Sheldon said. "You know what's wrong. We talked about it the other day. It's the same thing. It hasn't gone away. It's like those people that think that the Doctor is called 'Doctor Who'." He looked at her. "Which would include you, by the way."

Amy sighed. "Sheldon, people are going to change. It's a fact of life. No one stays exactly the same, and if they do, then I feel sorry for them. Look at you and me. If we stayed the same, we'd never be where we are now. Penny made us go out on a date. Penny set up Howard and Bernadette, and there would be no Leonard and Penny without Penny. Can't you cut her some slack?"

"I didn't come over here for you to lecture me," Sheldon said, standing up. "I have more degrees than you do."

"Yes, I know. Oh Em Gee," she said pointedly. "But remember when you were upset about your hair not being cut, and your routine changed, but nothing happened? Change is fine, sometimes. And when you can't help it, you have to roll with it. Like, like that song that goes _when there are stones in the road there's only one thing to do. You gotta learn to walk with rocks in your shoes_. You know?"

Sheldon looked at her for a long moment. "Did Penny get you into country music?"

"My _point_," Amy said, ignoring the question, "is that you're a really smart guy-no offense."

"None taken," Sheldon said. "There really isn't a defined word that can describe how smart I am." He sighed. "I'm just not used to everyone not paying a lot of attention to me. Or at least my mother would describe it as 'a lot'."

"I have a solution," Amy said. "Let's go and get married."

Sheldon cocked his head. "We are already planning to."

"No, I mean now. Well, not now. Not today. But maybe tomorrow. Or the day after that."

"I'm sorry," Sheldon said, "I don't like to be rushed."

"Sheldon, you take marriage very seriously, don't you?"

"Of course," Sheldon said. "My parents fought bitterly; they never got divorced because their generation fixed something when it broke instead of throwing it away."

Amy nodded. "We don't fight."

"I know that," Sheldon said. "You're the constant in my life. Archimedes had Pi, Avagadro had six point oh two two times ten to the twenty third, Sheldon Cooper has Amy Farrah Fowler."

Amy dropped back onto the couch. Sheldon Cooper was so innocent in how he made romantic comments. To him, they weren't grand gestures, but just a case of him speaking the truth. Sheldon and Amy, to him, was like two plus two equaling four. It was right, and there was no question about it. It was just that simple. And he didn't understand how knowing that about him could make Amy feel all the more special. "So _Sheldon_," she said. "Let's make it happen. Then you'll know that no matter what changes, no matter how many children Leonard and Penny have and no matter how many times Raj claims that Star Trek five is worse than one, I'll always be here." She cocked her head. "You've got the most brilliant mind I've ever known. You deserve a constant. I might even add it to Wikipedia."

Sheldon gave a little laugh. "That won't matter. Koothrapali will just mess with it eventually." They smiled at each other. "Okay," Sheldon said, nodding. "We'll get married this week. But-" he held up a finger, "consummation is still off the table."

Amy looked at him for a long moment, and then sighed. "Fine. But for a wedding present you owe me an electric toothbrush."

Sheldon looked at her, confused. "Do I want to-"

"Probably not."

"Okay then."


	63. Faced With Her Indifference

**New chapter – this one takes place within two days of the last one. Sorry I'm getting it up late again – I'm readjusting to being home and it's been kinda hectic.**

**New episode tomorrow for those of us in the US!**

"You did what?" Leonard asked, cocking his head.

"I called Sheldon's mother," Penny said. "He was upset. He needs her."

"Amy isn't good enough for that?"

"Do you have some sort of problem with Mrs. Cooper?" Penny said.

"No, no," Leonard said. "No problem. Does she know you're pregnant?"

Penny looked confused. "Of course she knows I'm pregnant. I talk to her more than you talk to your own mother." Penny dropped her wooden spoon into the pot of noodles. "You still haven't told your mother, have you?" She slammed her hands down on the table. "Dammit Leonard, what's your problem?"

He didn't respond. Penny threw her head back and groaned in frustration. "Leonard, you're in your mid thirties, why the Hell are you still afraid of her?"

"It's not that I'm afraid of her," he said.

"I swear to God, Hofstadter. If you don't tell her, I will."

There was a knock at her door. Then a second. Then a third. Both Penny and Leonard raised their eyebrows when it wasn't followed by a "Leonard and Penny?" and then more knocking. "Come in!" Penny called.

The door opened to reveal Mary Cooper standing in the hallway with her black suitcase. "No one was next door," she said.

"Hey, Mary!" Penny said, smiling and coming around the counter.

"Hello sweetheart!" Mary said, putting her suitcase down just inside the apartment and giving the blonde a hug. "Oh, look at you," she said, backing up and looking down at Penny's stomach. "Look at you."

Penny's cheeks turned pink as she smiled at Sheldon's mother, looking almost embarrassed to be the center of attention. "You look great," she said, smiling from Sheldon's mother to Leonard.

Mary smiled. "And there's the daddy," she said, coming over and taking Leonard's hands, squeezing them hard. "You must be so proud."

Leonard looked past Mary to Penny. "I am," he said, nodding. "I am."

"So," Mary said, settling herself on the other bar stool. "What are we having?"

"Oh," Penny said, going back around the counter and looking into the pot. "That depends on whether I can get this out of there without all the rest of it sticking to the sides because I wasn't stirring properly.

Mary looked confused. "What?"

"Spaghetti." Penny said, cocking her head. "As long as I can get this _spoon_ out of the boiling water before it all sticks to the side because I couldn't, you know," she made a stirring gesticulation. "Stir it." She lifted the pot off of the stove and set it on one of the hot pads.

Mary gave a laugh. "I was talking about the baby."

Leonard started laughing, putting a hand to his mouth to try and hide it.

"_Oh!_" Penny put a hand to her own mouth. "Oh, right. Yeah," she said, looking back down at the spaghetti. "Yeah, girl, it's a girl."

"Aw, a girl," Mary said. "I always imagined the two of you with a daughter. It just seemed to fitcha, you know?"

"Well, according to your son's fiancé, girls are more complicated because you have to keep them away from the guys."

"Ah," Mary said. "They'll learn. Sooner or later they either find one or realize most of them are just looking for someone to take advantage of. That's why my Missy is single, she was sick of putting up with…" she cocked her head. "Fiancé?"

"Oops," Penny said, glancing at Leonard. To distract herself, she thrust her hand into the pot and removed the spoon, immediately dropping it on the floor and shaking her hand. "Yaaa!"

Leonard jumped up, ran around to the sink, and turned it on to cold, grabbing her wrist and shoving it under the water. "What did you do that for?" he asked her.

She shook her head as Mary came around to her other side. "I'm okay. It hadn't been on the stove for a couple minutes."

"Let me see it," Mary said, taking Penny's wrist and rotating it around. "Well, you don't seem to be burned," she said, "but run it under room temperature water for a few minutes, just to be sure." She turned the sink back on, half hot and half cold, and guided Penny's hand under it. "There you go, baby," she said squeezing Penny's shoulder. "Now what's this about my son?"

"Sheldon and Amy are…getting married," Leonard said. "Sometime this week."

Mary raised an eyebrow. "I'd ask if he got her pregnant, but I'm pretty certain I know the answer to that."

"Believe me," Penny said. "I'm sure Amy would love for me and her to be pregnant at the same time. If there was any way she could persuade Sheldon to get her that way, it would have happened already."

"Well, would you look at that," Mary said, smiling. "I'm going to be a mother in law!"

"Well, and honorary grandmother, of course!" Penny said.

Mary smiled. "Well, you know I'd love that," she said. "I love spoiling kids! I used to bake things for the ones on our street, at least until I couldn't remember if the plate I was going to give them was the plate on the counter or the table. And one had glass in it."

"I thought you put glass in Mr. Cooper's meatloaf?" Leonard said.

"Honey, we had no rules," Mary said with a wave of her hand. "Oh," she said, turning around and looking toward the door. "Shelly!"

"How did she hear him?" Penny asked, looking at Leonard.

"I guess that's where he got his Vulcan hearing from."

"Hi, baby," she said, leaving the apartment and hugging him.

"Which one of you Neimodians called my mother?" Sheldon asked.

Mary smiled at him. "I just heard the news!" she said. "Oh Shelly, I'm proud of you, I knew that the Lord Jesus had someone out there just for you, and when I met Amy that first time I just knew that…"

"Twenty bucks she's going to try and make him do a traditional church wedding," Penny whispered.

"No way am I just handing you twenty bucks," Leonard said back.

"Amy, get over here before I'm crushed to death with these Texan hugs," Sheldon called in the direction of the stairs. Penny smiled as Amy appeared a moment later and enthusiastically accepted the hug that her future mother in law offered. When they separated, Mary touched Amy's face gently and grabbed one of her hands and one of Sheldon's, speaking to them in a low voice.

"She's so adorable," Penny said. She leaned against Leonard. "So loving, so sweet."

"I'm not afraid of my mother," Leonard said.

Penny sighed. "We can talk about it later, it's no big deal."

"No," he said, spinning her around slowly. "Penny, I need you to understand."

She cocked her head. "I understand that your mother is condescending. I understand that she adores your brother and sister. Believe me, I get it."

"Really think about this," Leonard said.

"What?"

"Let me finish."

Penny lowered her eyes. "Sorry."

"Really think about this," he started again. "Did you think it was weird how happy and excited Sheldon's mother was about our baby?"

Penny thought for a moment. "No, not really. Everyone loves babies."

"It's not even her grandchild, though."

"It doesn't matter," Penny said. "Complete strangers have told us congratulations. A baby is a miracle. It's natural that she'd react like that…" she trailed off. "Why?"

"Mary Cooper is the mother of one of _our friends_. And here she is, just…just gushing over us because we're pregnant." Leonard sighed. "_My_ mother? She doesn't feel pride when one of us accomplishes something. If she doesn't do it, she doesn't give a giant rat's ass. And you're right – most strangers will congratulate us because that's _just what you do_. But you know what? My mother won't do it. She'll give a stiff nod. If she congratulates us at all, it'd be because it's what you were supposed to do, not because she actually cares. She's _my mother_, she's supposed to care most, and no one loved me unconditionally until you." His voice grew quiet. "I'm not afraid of her. I just know she won't react like that and if I don't tell her things that should make her happy and proud, I don't have to face the fact that she never is and never will be. If I ever am forced to come out of that denial, and faced with her indifference, it's going to hurt too much. And I can't take that. I'd rather pretend that _if_ I told her she'd hug me and hug you and tell us she's proud and love the baby and all, than see her stiff, cold reaction to the news and wishing yet again that she was warm, and loving, and sweet like Mrs. Cooper. I love you and this baby more than anything in the entire universe," he said, putting a hand on her shoulder, "and I want to pretend that she'd be half as happy for us as a mother should be. That's why I don't want to tell her. So I can convince myself that she's proud."

Penny was surprised at how tight her throat felt after his speech, and how wet her eyes were. She hadn't thought of it that way – not at all – and remembering that Leonard had to grow up never getting to share in his accomplishments with _his mother_ made her feel ten times worse for him than her first exposure to Beverly's coldness – his story of the hugging machine. Her ability to get along with Beverly while they were both drunk didn't change the fact that she was less than indifferent to her son. Realizing all over again that he'd never had that warmth, she moved closer and put her arms around him. "I'm sorry."

He squeezed her gently. "It's okay."

"I don't know what that's like," Penny said. "Sure, my dad was very adamant I be a tomboy, but…" she shook her head. "Okay. Okay. You don't have to call her. But we're letting her know once she's born, okay? She is your mother, she deserves to know if she has any grandchildren. And she doesn't yet, does she?"

"I wouldn't know," Leonard said. "That would require her sharing information with me." Penny cocked her head. "No," he said. "She doesn't."

"Hey," she said, slapping his chest lightly. "Won't that make her happy? You giving her the first grandchild? I mean, isn't passing your genes on and stuff really important? Like, a basic animalistic instinct?"

"Hey," Leonard said, "that argument would work better on my father." He kissed Penny's forehead. "Sorry for…unloading on you there."

"You needed to say it," Penny said. "You know, like a part of the Beta Test is still here with us."

"A little part," he said, glancing at the door. Mrs. Cooper had either gone into 4A with the Shamy or the three of them had gone back downstairs. He looked back at Penny. "I know one part of that test that is most definitely _not_ still applicable." He looked back at her and raised his eyebrows, and she leaned over to kiss him."

After a few moments, Leonard pulled back, walked over to the door, and then shut it. "Couch or bed?" he asked.

"Bed," she said. "We don't want gravity to finish what it started last time and knock us onto the coffee table."

Leonard shrugged. "It could be hot," he joked. "I'm kidding," he added as Penny looked at the couch thoughtfully.

**Shamy will get married in the next chapter – don't expect anything too big or fancy, but they will be married at the end of it. I'll update next on Friday!**


	64. May the Force be With You

**I wrote this while watching JAG with my parents. Then I had to edit it because I had a lot of 'sir' and 'ma'am' in it. My bad!**

**(And how awesome was that episode yesterday, seriously? AMAZING!)**

**Oh yeah, and I still don't own anything.**

"I can't believe that they aren't letting us go in with them," Gilda said indignantly. "We're their best friends!"

"Leonard is Sheldon's best friend and Penny is Amy's," Bernadette said. "And Sheldon's mother is there. A City Hall wedding doesn't allow a lot of guests."

Still, Gilda said. "They could have let us in. I didn't bring Iris. Or the board!"

"You should have brought Iris," Bernadette said. "We could have amused ourselves with her trying to mime zero gravity"

Gilda leaned back on the bench and looked at Bernadette. "Did you just say we'd be doing a lot better right now if a little kid was with us?"

"Your little kid is adorable," Bernadette said defensively.

"No, no, that's not it," Gilda said. Bernadette raised her eyebrows. "I mean," the other woman corrected, "Iris's adorability is not the concern here." She cocked her head. "Are you starting to warm to the idea of giving Howard a few little Wolowitzs?"

"No," Bernadette said.

"Sure."

"No, really," she said. "I still don't want kids. But with Leonard and Penny having a baby, and with me getting to know Iris a little better, and add to that me not getting to talk to Howard and you talking about how Iris helps you through the time Mark is away, and just all that at once…" she shrugged. "It made a part of me want company. A little piece of Howard to keep me from feeling so alone. But that's the wrong reason for wanting a kid, because even now, when I am alone, I still don't really like the idea."

"I can understand that," Gilda said, leaning back. "Kids are great, though."

"They're not for everybody," Bernadette said quickly.

"I know," Gilda said. "I know." She looked at Bernadette. "They are, though."

"I know that," Bernadette said. "But the kind of woman who worries about the baby ruining her body isn't the kind of women I think most kids would want as a parent."

"Most of us have that concern at some point," Gilda said.

"Not Penny," Bernadette said. "Which is funny because you'd think that she'd worry about that a lot."

"She has," Gilda said. "She just hasn't told you."

"She told you?"

"No. But it crosses most women's minds. And it's not something that they're often comfortable talking about to women they think look good. Not to mention Penny stressed so much over their struggles with conception that her looks probably weren't the biggest concern – getting pregnant was." Gilda shrugged. "And with the baby only a bit over two months away, she's going to be focusing all her energies on staying comfortable and getting ready to deliver – and no matter how she looks after the baby's born, right now she'll only be thinking about how soon she won't sweat every time she walks across the hall, it won't be long before she can go an hour without peeing, and how she doesn't have to put up with the back pain for too much longer."

"It seems like it's so much farther away than two months," Bernadette said. She looked down. "Are you worried?"

Gilda pulled a granola bar out of her purse and tore it open. "About?" she inquired, offering half to the microbiologist.

Bernadette shook her head at the food. "Thanks. But I mean about Penny. They've had the trouble getting pregnant, the cancer scare, the fall on the ice, the fever…" she trailed off. "Next step is giving birth. What's going to go wrong?"

"We don't know that anything is going to go wrong," Gilda said. "Is she having it at home or in a hospital?"

"They decided on hospital because they're more familiar with that procedure. Which is better if something does go wrong."

"Nothing will," Gilda said. "The Force is strong with them."

"The Force being their love?" Bernadette asked. "Or...the baby? Or their parental ambition? I mean, I know it's a _Star Wars _reference, but..."

"Love doesn't truly conquer all," Gilda said. "If that were so, then Mark and I wouldn't spend so much time apart so he can work. You could somehow be up there with Howard. I could be working with my board right now while we wait for Shamy to exchange their vows." She smiled. "But nothing is going to happen to Penny. Nothing is going to happen to their daughter, and Howard will come home to you safely. That's the only way we can afford to think." She sighed. "I mean, aside from thinking that Sheldon and Amy should have let us come in."

"Limited space, Gilda. It's okay."

"See that?" Bernadette jumped when Gilda smacked her on the shoulder. "Us keeping each other positive!"

Bernadette raised her eyebrows slightly. "Uh-huh."

"Look!" Gilda said, standing up as a group headed out of the building and began moving toward them. "It's Dr. and Dr. Cooper!"

"Fowler-Cooper," Amy said, grinning up at Sheldon and shifting the flowers she held to her other arm. "Isn't that right, hubby?"

"We decided that that didn't work when you said it after the kiss in there," Sheldon reminded her, gesturing with his head back toward the building.

"So everything went smoothly?" Bernadette asked.

"Right up until the officiator said "may the Force be with you" at the end there," Mary said. "You couldn't at least have done this in a church?"

"Actually," Leonard said, "Penny and I arranged that. As part of their wedding gift."

"Ah, well," Mary said, waving a hand at them. "Jesus still loves you."

"_Well_," Gilda said, getting up and grabbing one of Amy's hands and one of Sheldon's. "Congratulations, you too."

"Thank you," Amy said, blushing. She looked sideways at Penny, then to the other girls. "I'm somebody's wife! Sheldon Cooper's wife!"

"You certainly are, darling," Mary said, putting her arm around Amy and giving her a hug before backing away and patting both her son and daughter – in – law's backs.

"Yes," Penny said, shifting her weight. "On purpose!" She grinned at Leonard, who put his arm around her. "PhD and PhD. Homo novus and Homo novus!"

Amy raised an eyebrow at Penny, and then jumped slightly. "Oh, I almost forgot!" The neurobiologist grinned at Gilda and Bernadette and then turned back to the unmarried duo. "Here." She reached out and gently tossed her flowers at Penny, who caught them, brought them to her nose, and grinned sideways at Leonard.

"So," Bernadette said, looking at the newleyweds. "Forgive me for asking, but what now?"

"Well," Sheldon said, "Amy and I have to emark on our honeyweek."

"What's a-" Penny trailed off. "Never mind, I figured it out."

"Where are you guys going?" Gilda asked.

"Cross country by train!" Sheldon said. "And we have a bunch of Stephen Hawking lectures to listen to. Plus some neurobiologist that Amy swears I will just love. I doubt it, but in this marriage I will give and take."

"Let's see how long that will last," Bernadette said jokingly.

"We all have bets," Penny said, putting her hand against the front of her stomach. Leonard cocked his head. "A Braxton," she told him. Looking back at Bernadette, she said "for example, I think that Sheldon's gentlemany attitude won't last as long as this pregnancy. Leonard thinks it won't last as long as the honeymoo – week."

"And I think it'll last for the entire dang marriage because his Momma says so," Mary said sternly, looking hard at her son.

"Can I make a bet?" Bernadette asked, "Because I think it'll last as long as Mrs. Cooper is in California."

"Eh, I have her number," Amy said. "We'll be fine." She turned and grabbed Sheldon by the shoulders, kissing him quickly. "See?" she said. "He wouldn't have let me do that in front of you all a couple of years ago."

"I never had that problem," Penny said, turning and kissing Leonard, who instinctively put his hands on her back.

Amy watched them for a brief instant, and then kissed Sheldon again. "Now now," Mary said, glancing at Penny and Leonard and then back to the Shamy, Sheldon standing with his hands awkwardly on Amy's elbows as she kissed him. "There is no need to get competitive…come now son, you're married, put some tongue into it!" She stepped back, looking a little surprised at herself.

Gilda and Bernadette looked at each other. "I feel so left out," Gilda said, laughing.

Bernadette looked at her, unblinking. "No."

**Next update will be on Sunday. :) And Happy _Star Wars_ day, everyone! May the Fourth be with you!**


	65. Your Satellite

**Sorry this is up so late, I was outside a good portion of the day and then had some television to watch in the evening. I can't promise a chapter number on how many are left, but it's at least a half dozen. I haven't quite figured it out yet, but we're entering the homestretch.**

**And I still own nothing. Just so you know.**

After seeing Sheldon and Amy off at the train station, Leonard and Penny drove home alone in the dark. "I never expected to be the third couple getting married," Penny said.

"Are you more surprised that Sheldon or Howard got married?" Leonard asked.

"About equally shocked, but for opposite reasons," she replied, laughing. "But I'd have to give it to Sheldon."

Penny thought for a moment. "Me too. I figured someone would eventually hang on to Howard…I just didn't figure it being someone like Bernadette." She shifted her weight, grunting as she readjusted the seat belt.

Leonard glanced over at her. "You okay?"

"Yeah," she said. "I just feel too big for this seat."

"Well, we don't have far to go now," Leonard said. Penny turned to look at him. "I mean," he corrected, "you don't look too big for the seat, sweetie."

"Much better," she said, shifting her weight again. "Hey, can you pull over when we hit the park?"

"You gotta pee?" he asked.

"No, I just…" Penny paused. "Do I?" She thought for a moment. "No, no. I just want to walk home."

"I'm not letting you walk home alone."

"Just leave the car, we can get it in the morning."

"Any particular reason?"

Penny shrugged. "The car's uncomfortable, it's a nice night…" she smiled over at him. "It might be nice."

Leonard reached over and squeezed her hand briefly, still watching the road. "Okay then." He entered the park and drew the car over to the side. "What if we get towed?"

"We won't," Penny said. "You remember that guy Mike?"

"Blog?"

Penny sighed. "Yeah. Anyway, we used to…" she hesitated. "We'd pull over, and…"

She looked uncomfortable – even more than she already was, so he decided to rescue her. "It was in the blog," Leonard said. "I get it."

"Well, point, we'd fall asleep in his car and leave in the morning and no one ever knocked on the window," she said. "So as long as you park in the side of the lot that isn't right next to the road, it'll be fine. Here's good."

Leonard eased the car into the spot and put it in park. Switching off the engine, he looked over at her. "So…you and Mike. Right in this parking lot." He let out a breath. "Awesome," he said sarcastically.

"Eh," Penny said, suddenly looking playful. She unbuckled her seat belt. "We only ever fooled around _in_ the car." She opened her door, eased herself out, and then came around to his side, opening the door and smiling at him. "Come on!"

It took him a second to realize what she was proposing. "In the park?"

"C'mon," she said. "'This one time I had sex with my girlfriend at night in a park'. There's the crazy story you've always wanted!"

He jumped out of the car, attempting to look dramatic, and kissed her hurriedly. She giggled. "Come on." She grabbed his hand. "This way."

"You promise we're not going someplace you've already been?"

"Not with a guy in the middle of the night," she said, stopping by some bushes. "We always stayed in cars. This, this is _wild_."

Her suggestive voice made him laugh. "Wild, huh?" he said, putting his hands on her waist and kissing her. She kissed him back, after a moment or two pulling on his jacket in a signal for him to lower himself to the ground. He dropped down and she eased herself down next to him. "Whoa," she said, putting a hand out to steady herself and another hand on her head. Leonard rose to his knees and put his hands on her shoulders. "You okay?"

"I'm dizzy," she said, taking both of his wrists and lowering her head.

"It's okay," he said, "sit down." He settled down next to her and put an arm around her shoulders, using his other hand to squeeze hers. "Any better?" She nodded but didn't speak. "Hey," he said, tilting his head down to smile at her. "Third trimester. We're close."

She smiled over at him. "We are," she said, squeezing his hand. "We're going to be parents. Mom and Daddy." She rested her head on his shoulder. "I think I'm going to wear her in a snugli like Gilda wore Iris. You think that'll look cute?"

"So much," he said, rubbing her shoulder. "Just under two months now." He leaned over and kissed her neck. "Just under two months."

"Leonard?"

"Hmm?"

"Are we ready?" She looked up at the sky. "Like, really ready? We don't have any baby things yet. We're making plans to move to another apartment, and is that really a place we'd like to raise our daughter? There's such a busy street right outside…so much can still go wrong."

"Aren't the girls throwing you a baby shower in two weeks? I'm sure Gilda has worked out on her board everything you'll need."

"She said she'd give me the stuff she isn't using anymore," Penny said, "since she and Mark aren't going to have any more kids."

He nodded. "It'll help. A lot. And we can go out after that and get anything else we need. We still have six weeks. And as for the apartment…" he trailed off. "We don't have to be there long term. If we decide it's not for us, we'll find something else. I'm tenured, we can do whatever we want. This is a beginning. And it's wide open. And we'll have everything ready, we'll have a plan for the future, and if it wavers, you know what? So what? We'll figure it out."

"Have you thought about it?" she asked. "I'm all for winging it, but this is a serious thing. I don't want to go into it with no idea."

"Of course," he said, tapping her hand. "You're wearing the ring, aren't you?" At her smile, he continued. "We'll get married as soon as we can. And our living situation will work for the time being, and there's _so many _options out there for when we are ready to take the step. All our immediate concerns are taken care of. We're going to be okay." He cocked his head. "What are your thoughts?"

Penny grinned mischeviously at him, leaning over so her nose was almost touching his. "Hey baby," she said suggestively, "wanna go look at houses in neighborhoods with good schools?"

Leonard burst out laughing. "I love you," he told her.

"I should hope so," she replied. "I'm having your baby, after all." She pushed her nose against his. "And for the record I've been waiting for two days to use that houses line."

Leonard laughed. "Seriously?"

"Yep." She patted his knee. "Do you still want to get married after the baby's born? Or do you want to just go and get it done like Sheldon and Amy?"

"Well," Leonard said, "I don't want anyone thinking it's a shotgun wedding – if we do it later it'll prove it's been planned out, you know? I've never imagined marrying you so late in this. Have you?"

"Well…" Penny sat back. "Not recently." Leonard cocked his head, and she shook hers. "Long story." She didn't really want to explain _that_ to him. "So…where are we?"

"I assume you don't want me to say 'the park'."

"Preferrably not."

"I guess we're about where we were before," he said. "Getting married once the baby's born, getting ready to be parents…I guess our living plans aren't set in stone now."

"4B will work for now," she said. "We want her in the same room with us anyway." She smiled. "You're right. It'll be okay. It has so far, hasn't it?"

He smiled and nodded. "It has."

"Well," she said, cocking her head. "Now that that's settled…I'm not dizzy anymore, and…"

Leonard smiled, then looked serious again – or as serious as he could appear in the dim light. "Now, you're sure you and Mike haven't…"

"Not here," she said. "I promise. This is…oh!"

"What?"

Penny pointed up at the sky. "A shooting star!"

Leonard looked up. "That's a satellite, Penny," he said.

She looked disappointed. "Oh."

"Hey," he said smiling, "it's better than a shooting star. We can see it longer, and it's happening now. It's not a quick glimpse of the past. It's a solid look at the present moment."

"Like now," she said, scooting closer to him again. "Forget about me and Mike. It was _so long _ago and wasn't even that serious – we wouldn't even be talking about him right now if it wasn't for this park idea. Shooting stars are overrated, burning up and ending with _nothing_. Satellites last, and they bring so much more to the table. I don't care what people say about wishing and watching for them. I'd rather be your satellite than your shooting star."

"That is quite possibly the most romantic thing I've ever heard," Leonard said. "And it was scientific!"

"Well, you know," she said. "I try."

"No," Leonard said. "You _do_."

She smiled. "Right."

**Hope you liked it! New chapter will be up on Tuesday-and next Thursday is the FINALE! And thanks to all my reviewers so far, and a shoutout to Theophilus Rex, who was review number 500! I love you all! :)**


	66. Order 66

**New chapter! Sorry this is up so late and sorry it's short.**

**And I still don't own anything. Which I originally typed as "I still don't know anything." **

"I talked to my parents today," Penny said, "asked them to keep some room in their schedules for after the baby's born, you know, so they can come out for our wedding."

"What did they say?" Leonard asked, putting down his comic book.

"They said that they'll come as long as we get married on an even day because everyone in my family who has married on an odd day, well, one of them has gotten shot. My sister shot her husband, my cousin – the one who was engaged to Christy – shot his ex."

"You've got Sheldon's seat cushion and I shot my little toe," Leonard said. "We already have bad luck with guns. Shouldn't we get married on an odd day just to fit in?"

She swatted him. "It's my family's one superstition. Odd days for marriage."

"It certainly is a little odd," Leonard said, smiling. Penny raised her eyebrows. "Lame joke?" She nodded. "Okay."

"Yeah, they seemed pretty excited," she said. "Though they could just be in a good mood. They were blasting Honky Tonk Blues when I called them so I guarantee they were dancing around the living room."

"Really?" Leonard said. "Wyatt doesn't strike me as that type. Though I know everyone listens to country music where you come from. You know, that's on Sheldon's list of things he doesn't like about you." He reached for his water bottle.

"I'd be offended by that if I didn't know he had one of those for everyone," Penny said. "My parents love all country music, but if it's upbeat and it's prior to like 1995, they'll always dance to it if they think we aren't watching. My brother recorded them a couple of years ago and it went on YouTube."

Leonard choked on his water. "Is it still up?"

"You wish," Penny said. "And I don't. And no, it's not. Though that was probably the least harmless thing he's done in the past ten years, to be honest." She laughed. "But yeah, I mean, why wouldn't they be excited?" She dropped down next to him. "We're pretty awesome, you know. Though…" she cocked her head, "I guess my Dad did get a little quiet when I really got into the details."

"Really?" Leonard said, leaning back and eyeing her. "I thought he loved me!"

She laughed. "He does. He was probably preoccupied by something."

"I thought you said they were dancing!"

"Oh, stop being paranoid," Penny said, slapping his shoulder. "If anything was bothering him, it's not us. He probably would pay the Marriage gods to intervene if we didn't figure us out on our own. It was probably the cows, or maybe he just didn't expect to be interrupted from his attempts to swing mom around the room."

Leonard leaned over and kissed her forehead. "Penny," he said jokingly, "I'm not paranoid."

She raised an eyebrow. "Okay." She patted his cheek. "Oh! Bernadette told me that she gets to video call Howard later in the werk, and she invited us to come."

"Are we going to?" Leonard asked. "I mean, if you were up there…if _I_ was up there," he corrected when Penny raised her eyebrows, "I would want you all to myself whenever we get to talk via radio."

"Well, we're getting close to the baby coming," Penny said. "Bernadette got an email from Howard today and apparently he wants to talk to us. And I'm sure Raj will like listening to us."

* * *

><p>Leonard was awakened some time after midnight by Penny shifting her weight yet again. "Penny?" He asked groggily, turning to look over his left shoulder and see her better. "Are you okay?"<p>

"No," she said, sounding irritable. "I can't sleep."

Leonard rolled over and looked at her. She was sitting up, both hands resting on her stomach. Her head was tilted back against the headboard; her eyes appeared to be squeezed shut. She looked so uncomfortable Leonard almost felt bad for sleeping at all. "Do you want to talk?" He asked, sitting up.

"_No_," she said, sounding frustrated. "I don't want to talk; I want to sleep! But I can't!"

"Have you tried lying on your right side?" Leonard asked. "The doctor said that might help."

She turned to face him. "I've tried everything!" she said in frustration. "I've laid on my right side. I've tried to lay flat; I've propped myself up on pillows. I've walked around the apartment. I've gone to the bathroom; I've drank water." Her voice started to crack. "I'm so tired…" She put her hands to her face.

Leonard scooted over and put an arm around her shoulders, the other one he used to take her hands away from her face. Her face was hot; her tears just as warm. Leonard massaged her hands with his thumb.

Penny looked at him. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm being such a bitch."

"It's okay," he said. "You're exhausted."

She blinked. "Sweetie, that's the part where you say 'no, you're not being a bitch'."

"Oh. Right. Sorry." Leonard cleared his throat. "No, you're not being…"

Penny grabbed a pillow and swatted him. "Rest I need, Leonard."

He kissed the side of her forehead. "Just stay on top of the covers like you're doing," he said. "Count storm troopers, or Kardashians, or whatever works, and while I appreciate the Star Wars reference there, it's a bit out of context since Yoda was referring to death whereas you literally just want to sleep, so..."

"Honey, shhhh," she said, putting a hand over his mouth. "If you keep talking and I can't sleep, I'm going to go all Order 66 on you. While I appreciate the Kardashian reference."

"Sorry," he said, taking her hand from his mouth and curling his fingers around hers. "Close your eyes." As she did so, Leonard squeezed her hand gently, choosing not to explain that her reference was again a little out of context. He was happy enough that her sleep deprived state hadn't stopped her from _wanting_ to do little things to make him happy._  
><em>

"_Baby in five weeks,_" he whispered a few minutes later, brushing her hair back. He saw her lips curve up ever so slightly into a smile.

**Next chapter we'll get a bit into what's up with Wyatt, and Leonard, Penny, and Bernadette will talk to the guys in space pretty soon. Also, for those asking, Raj and Howard are scheduled to be back shortly before the baby comes. :)**


	67. The Microphone Conjecture

**It's finale night for those of us in the U.S.! Woot woot! I'm so very excited. In the meantime, here's another chapter. **

**When asked what I own, I quote Penny: "Nothing, not a damn thing."**

Bernadette smiled when she caught site of Penny crossing the room and sliding into the booth across from her. "Hey, you're a little late."

"Sorry," Penny said. "I had to stop at the bathroom."

"Did they let you cut the line?" Bernadette asked, looking across the room at the small assembly of people near the bathroom doors.

"Oh, I didn't stop there," she said. "I'm talking about Mrs. Grossinger's bathroom. Nice lady to let me use it, she said that she understands." Penny took a cracker from Bernadette's plate. "Scary ass dog, though." She shifted her weight and sighed. "Ugh."

"Still can't get comfortable, huh?"

Penny shook her head. "I haven't slept well in the past couple of days."

"Aw, I'm sorry," Bernadette said, reaching across the table and grabbing Penny's hand. "But only five weeks left, right?"

Penny put her other hand on top of Bernadette's. "Yeah. Only five more weeks." She removed her hand and put it on her stomach. "Then Leonard and I will be parents." She sighed again, and then looked at Bernadette and grinned. "I can't wait."

"I bet," Bernadette said. "It's been a long wait." She let go of Penny's hand and took a drink of her coffee. "And Howard and Raj will be home soon, and Shamy will be back in two days…everything's working out, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Penny said, still smiling. "And then a little while after that, Leonard and I will get married."

"Did you ever figure out what's bugging your dad about that?" Bernadette asked.

"No," she said. "Leonard asked him if he was upset that we weren't getting married before the baby comes, and he said he wasn't. So I don't know." She sighed. "But it'll be soon. And then we'll all be happy. Well, aside from poor Raj."

"He'll find somebody," Bernadette said. "Hey! You're a matchmaker, why don't you set him up with somebody?"

"Leonard and I are working on that," Penny said. "You know Sheldon's sister?"

"Not personally," Bernadette said, "but Howard did tell me that he tried to hook up with her, so I know he has one. Great way of learning that, you know."

Penny laughed. "Well, I spent some time with her one time when she came to visit Sheldon, and she really liked Raj. But he couldn't talk to her. I talked to Mrs. Cooper when she came up here; Missy's single."

"You're going to try and hook Raj up with _Missy_?" Bernadette said. "Have they had any contact since she visited _years ago_?"

"Not exactly," Penny said, "but…"

"Why not try to hook him up with someone who lives in this area?" Bernadette said. "Or someone who he's at least _seen_ in the past decade. Why try to go back in time and whip something that barely had legs in the first place?"

"No one knew if Keith Urban had a voice until someone handed him a microphone," Penny said. "Missy and Raj never got their microphone. And until I hand one to them, I'm going to feel a little guilty, even though it's not my fault."

* * *

><p>The sleeping problem didn't get any better. That night Leonard woke up to find himself alone. He twisted around to regard the imprint in the mattress where Penny usually laid. "Penny?"<p>

No answer.

Leonard got out of bed looked toward the door to the bathroom. The light was off. Furrowing his brow, he exited the bedroom and surveyed the rest of the apartment.

Penny was standing in the dark, her back to him, near the table in the kitchen, her hands on the countertop and her head tilted down. Concerned, Leonard moved toward her, wondering if she was sleepwalking. "Penny?" He whispered.

"Screw this," Penny said, turning her head ever so slightly so she could see him. "I can't do this anymore." She dropped her head again and squeezed her eyes shut. "I swear I haven't slept in a week. I can't lay on my stomach, and my back hurts to much to lay on it. When I lay on my side my pelvis hurts and I can't sleep standing up, I'm not a horse." She took a step back and put both hands under her stomach, taking a deep breath and tipping her head back. "No one told me this part was going to be so hard."

"Here," Leonard said, taking her arm and leading her to the couch. "Sit here and I'll rub your feet."

"I need sleep Leonard. Not a massage."

"Are you saying you don't want those massaged?" Leonard asked, pointing at her swollen ankles. "Keep your eyes closed, and maybe you'll relax enough to sleep. And if that doesn't work…or even if it does, how about, I'll go get you something tomorrow that I think will help a lot."

Penny sank down onto the couch and closed her eyes. "What is it?"

Leonard knelt at her feet and took one in his hands. "You'll see."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, Penny's eyes closed and her hands on her stomach while Leonard worked to get the blood flow back into her feet. Then Penny spoke. "So you know what's kinda cool?"

Smiling, Leonard looked up from her foot. "What?"

"Now that the baby's so big, I can tell when she has the hiccups."

Leonard raised his eyebrows, the smile not leaving his face. "Really!"

She nodded. "I was going to go crazy tonight, before you came out here, and then I could feel that, and it was different, and then I realized that she was hiccupping. It made me smile for a few minutes."

"That's…" Leonard's wide vocabulary still left him at a loss for words. "Awesome."

**Hope you liked it! Also, happy birthday, Leonard!**


	68. The Wyatt Explanation

**In response to some who have asked, I really loved the finale. I liked it better the second time I watched it, but I definitely liked it the first time too. Can't wait for season six!**

**And I still don't own anything. Grrrr.**

"So did you feel weird when Howard asked us what names we had in mind and we had no answer?" Penny asked as she hung up her jacket.

Leonard turned to look at her. "Weird?"

She shrugged. "Okay, maybe not weird, more…" Penny stacked her hands and wiggled her thumbs. "Awkward turtle."

Leonard rolled his eyes and laughed. "Awkward turtle," he repeated, shaking his head slightly.

"I know that we were afraid to talk about it…you know, before, but now that everything seems okay…" She dropped onto the love seat. "We should probably talk about it…"

"Benortom?" He suggested jokingly. She rolled her eyes. "Well, how do normal parents do it?" Leonard asked. "Do they sit down and just pick a name, does it just come to them, or do they do mathematical equations that will lead them to the best possible name considering their situation?"

Penny cocked her head. "What do you mean, 'normal' parents?"

Leonard paused, cocking his own head and thinking. "I guess I mean people like Mary and George Cooper. People who meet, date, get married, get a home, and then decide that they want a family. Traditional people. How do they do it?"

Penny shook her head slowly. "I don't think that there's one right way to do this," she said. "And for the record, if there is a right way to do it, I doubt it's the mathematical equation one. I mean, we could start by deciding what we want in a name. Or what we don't want."

"Not Leonard," Leonard said quickly, sitting down next to her.

"Aw, why not?" Penny scooted closer to him and put her hand on his knee. "I love your name!"

"Penny," he said, looking down at her hand. "It has 'nerd' in it."

"Well, you can forget Angelo," she said, grinning. She slid her other arm around his neck, playfully pouting. "Really? Not Leonard? But I love my nerdy boyfriend!"

Leonard put his hand over hers. "We've decided that we're not going to be our parents. If we name our child Leonard, everyone we know would hear the name and think of me, or they wouldn't know which of us was being talked about. Not to mention…" Leonard trailed off and looked away.

"What?" Penny said gently.

"He'd probably be teased in school. I'm sure it's worse now than when I was young."

"Oh, honey!" Penny leaned against him, squeezing his shoulders. "I'm sorry. You know," she said, rubbing his arm, "You have _no_ idea how much I wish I could make all of that better."

He looked up at her, smiling. "You already have."

"I Googled how to do that," she joked. Leonard smirked. "You know," she said, smiling, "we've been discussing boy names, when we know we're having a girl."

Leonard nodded. "Yeah. I guess we haven't gotten anywhere, aside from the fact that you've begun utilizing our favorite search engine."

"Oh, Leonard, I don't really need Google. Got it all right here." Penny tapped the side of her head. They smirked at each other. "But seriously," she said, "we have actually made progress. We're getting somewhere. We now know that we don't want a name that brings to mind someone else." She furrowed her brow and shifted her weight. "Who were you named after?"

"Leonard Darwin, Louis Leakey."

Penny was still for a moment, eyes off to the side, thinking. Then she looked back at Leonard, and said, slowly, "Son of the evolution guy…and the anthropologist your father worked with."

"That's my _girl_!" Leonard said proudly, raising his hand. She lifted hers off of his knee and completed the high five, and then threw her arms around him.

* * *

><p>"Can you see us?"<p>

"Daddy," Penny said, smiling. "See the bottom right corner of your screen? That shows what I can see. It's a very nice shot of Mom's breasts, but I'd prefer both of your faces."

"Wyatt, move the camera!"

"I'm working on it!"

Leonard glanced at Penny, who smirked at him. "I'm so lucky I'm with a guy who will always make sure I'm up to date with technology," she said.

He laughed. "I knew there was a reason why you were still with me."

"Is this better?" Penny's mother asked.

"Yeah, we can see you now," Penny said. "Hi!"

Wyatt smiled and his wife lifted a hand in greeting. "So what did you guys need to talk to us about?" Wyatt asked, "how's the baby?"

"The baby is big, active, and has a fondness for my bladder," Penny said. Wyatt put a hand to his forehead. "What? We talked about being honest!"

He nodded. "No, no, I remember." His wife looked sympathetically at him.

"So we narrowed down a few things," Penny said. "We have decided to have a small wedding."

"After all your big wedding dreams?" Her mother said, raising an eyebrow teasingly. She looked at Leonard. "Special guy!"

"Well, you know," Penny said, "when you're in love, it doesn't matter where or how these things happen."

Leonard looked at her, and she smiled. "It just matters that we have each other, right?" he said.

"Right. And little Marie Irene Savannah Chloe Samantha Noelle Hofstader," Penny said, putting a hand on her stomach and rubbing it.

"For the love of God, Penny, she's not going to be able to spell her name out until junior high!" her mother said, looking horrified.

"That's not her name," Leonard said quickly. "That's the list of names we have it narrowed down to. We're picking one."

"Don't go with Hofstadter," Wyatt said. "I know a Samson Samson. He hasn't had a pleasant social life."

"No no no," Leonard said. "Hofstadter is the last name. We're picking one of the girl's names and attaching it to Hofstadter, since, you know, that's my name, and when we get married, Penny's going to take it, because she decided…"

"Leonard," Penny said, "he was joking."

Leonard paused, then cleared his throat. "Sorry."

Both parents laughed. "It's okay, son," Wyatt said. "What else have you guys figured out?"

"We've found a couple of neighborhoods nearby that we might be moving to after the wedding. But we haven't really looked at anything yet on account of little Marie Irene Savannah Chloe Samantha Hofstadter," Penny said.

"I guess 'Noelle' just fell out of the running," Penny's mom said to her father. He didn't say anything, nodding.

"Oh, right," Penny said, laughing. "We dropping it?" she asked Leonard.

"Sure," he said. "Anything to narrow it down."

"What about Reba?" Wyatt suggested, leaning forward a bit.

"And things just got un – narrowed," his wife said.

"Reba?" Leonard asked.

"I'm not naming my daughter after your celebrity singer crush," Penny said. "Sorry, Daddy."

"What?" Wyatt said, looking at his wife. "That's a nice looking lady! Not even close to you, though, of course," he said, sliding an arm around her. "I've been more into Heartland recently anyway." She looked at Penny and Leonard and raised an eyebrow. They laughed.

"It's okay, Dad," Penny said. "I'm sure Leonard has a crush on, I don't know, Wonder Woman, or Super Girl, or someone like that. At least Reba is real."

"At least I have an imagination," Leonard retorted, and Penny smirked, scooting closer to him and planting a kiss on his cheek before resting her head on his shoulder. Leonard put his arm around her and squeezed gently.

"Our little girl is all grown up," Penny's mother said, smiling at her husband. "Not only pregnant, but engaged, soon to be married, moving into a house…" She shook her head, smiling proudly at her daughter. "I'm so proud of you, sweetheart."

"Thanks, Momma," Penny said pushing her nose into Leonard's neck affectionately before facing the webcam again. Her mother nudged Wyatt, who jolted out of whatever he was thinking about and smiled. "Me too, you two. Me too."

There was a silence, and then Penny's mother cleared her throat. "So, when do your friends get home?"

"Well," Penny said, "Sheldon and Amy will be in tonight, and Howard and Raj get back a week after that. Then less than a month until baby time!"

* * *

><p>Leonard sat on the couch, reading a <em>Childbirth and Baby's First Days <em>pamphlet, attempting to feel normal about what was to come. He couldn't. The most dramatic thing he'd ever been through was probably one of these pregnancy ordeals with Penny, and the most pain he'd ever been in was easily when he'd shot himself in the foot. Reading about the delivery process, coupled with wondering why Wyatt seemed to need prompting to reaffirm that he was happy with Penny's life outlook, was causing the physicist to feel more than a little bit of stress. And he couldn't. Penny was sleeping, finally, and had been for more than two hours, the longest she'd managed to remain asleep all week. When she woke up, he needed to be cool and calm and collected. It was only fair, after all.

But the Wyatt thing wouldn't stop bothering him. It was so unlike the man who had grabbed Leonard's jacket and beg that he still pursue her, the man who had told him to do whatever it took to make it work, the man who believed fourteen billion percent that Leonard and Penny were supposed to be together.

Leonard pulled out his phone. "I'm going to regret this," he said to no one in particular. _Wyatt,_ he texted, _I noticed you've been pretty quiet recently. Is everything okay? I hope this isn't crossing a line. As your future son in law, I am concerned._

He set the phone down on the coffee table and turned back to the reading, deciding it probably wasn't the best thing for his mindset right now. Staring at the phone waiting for a sixty year old man to text back – if he got the message already and if he was going to respond at all – probably wasn't the best Plan B, but he really didn't know what else to do right then. Bernadette was eating with her parents, Sheldon and Amy were on a train chugging along on its way back to the city, Raj and Howard were still in space, and Gilda, Mark, and Iris were probably still out from their day out at Knotts Berry Farm with another couple and their five year old twins. Leonard put his head in his hands and let out a breath, nervous.

It seemed like forever before his message tone sounded, and he almost lunged for the phone. It was from Wyatt, and Leonard held his breath while he opened the message.

_I knew the first time I saw you with her it was only a matter of time. But I loved her first. I held her first. And a place in my heart will always be hers. From the first breath she breathed, when she first smiled at me, I knew the love of a father runs deep. And I prayed that she'd find you someday, but it's still hard to give her away. I loved her first._

Leonard reached for his laptop and Googled the text, scrolling down and clicking on the YouTube link to listen to the song Wyatt had quoted. By the end, he slammed the laptop shut and sat still, staring out into nothing.

"Leonard? You okay?"

He turned to her. "I'm sorry," he said. "Did I wake you up?"

She looked concerned. "Are you crying?"

He shook his head, fighting the urge to wipe his eyes. "No."

"Oh, baby," she said, coming over to him and sitting down. "What's wrong?"

He shook his head, biting his lip. "Nothing," he said, pulling her close and kissing her forehead. "Absolutely nothing."

He rocked gently back and forth as she shifted her weight slightly and rested her hand on his leg. "Leonard?" she whispered. "I had a dream. You were throwing a ball for our daughter in a yard; she was chasing it. The ball looked like a miniature Death Star, and you called her Savannah."

"A Death Star, huh?" Leonard said.

She raised her head. "We really have to work on what you take from things."

He smiled. "I heard you," he said. "Savannah's a good name. It won't bring to mind a scientist or Kardashian, at least."

Penny smiled. "So…Savannah?"

"Savannah," he said, smiling back. She leaned in and kissed him, putting her hands on his neck. "We have a name," she said.

"We sure do," Leonard said back. "We're on our way, Penny."

She smiled, and they both looked down in response to their daughter kicking. "Guess we're going to have to start getting used to including her in conversation," Penny said, smiling.

Leonard put his hands on her head and kissed her between the eyes. "Baby in four and a half weeks."

**I promise I will have sections for the other characters between here and the end of the fic, just remember that it is primarily a Leonard/Penny fic so most of the fic is focused on them. :) And thanks to Kayla, Brit, and Roxanne for being my research helpers. :D**


	69. Touchdown

**So sorry that I couldn't get this up last night, either the site, my internet, or both was being ridiculous, so it's up a day late. My apologies!**

**And once more, I don't own anything.**

Bernadette, despite being offered company by everyone, even Iris ("I go wichoo") decided to go to the airport alone to meet Raj and Howard. After bad weather in Russia caused the astronauts a delay in getting home, she'd spent the better part of the week a mess, not sleeping in her own bed but wandering between her friends', spending a night in Gilda's spare room, then half a night at Howard's mother's before bailing for Amy's apartment, then a night on the couch in Penny's room, and then, after deciding she couldn't spend any more time with her mother in law, took Leonard's bed when the experimental physicist said he and Penny were spending all their nights in 4B anyway.

"Won't that be weird?" she asked him, unsure of the whole idea.

"Nah," Leonard said. "Sheldon's the only one who _hasn't_ slept in it at one time or another, it's kinda the go to 'need a place to crash' room. And I need to stay with Penny."

Deciding not to ask when Howard or Amy had used the bed, Bernadette thanked him, wore Sheldon down with a glare every time he tried to get her to sign paperwork, and fell asleep curled up in a ball in the center of the bed.

"Do you want us to stay with you?" Penny had asked her one night. Bernadette had shaken her head. She was inconveniencing her friends enough, and Penny and Leonard had the baby to get ready for. She was due in three weeks, and only the day before had her parents gone out and gotten a crib and other essentials They were handling everything fine, but they didn't need anyone else to worry about. Bernadette could get through it.

And she had. And now, months after she'd last been beside her husband, a week after she thought she'd be with him again, Bernadette was at the airport, waiting among the mass of others for their loved ones for Howard to come home. She felt badly for coming alone, he and Raj _were_ friends with everyone and had known Leonard, Penny, and Sheldon longer than she had, but they assured her that they didn't mind. They could see Howard and Raj later.

Her phone rang, and she kept an eye out while she removed it from her purse and answered. "Hello?"

"Bernadette? It's Raj."

"Drinking already?" she asked him, smiling to herself.

"Funny. Now listen," he said, "there was a problem with our tickets, they couldn't let us on the flight. We've been trying to call but with the weather here we couldn't get a signal."

"Wait," Bernadette said, her heart sinking, "are you guys still in Russia?" She turned slightly and put a finger in her other ear to hear over the people talking around her.

"Yes. We'll be home in three days unless something happens. But we don't think anything will."

"Oh." Bernadette swallowed hard and wiped her eyes under her glasses. "Okay. Can you put Howard on?"

"Why is that necessary?"

She jumped at the voice right behind her, whirling around to see her husband, less than two feet from her, grinning broadly. "Howard!" she shrieked, throwing her arms around him. She felt his close tightly around her and the tears escaped her eyes. "Howie," she whimpered, curling her fingers into his turtleneck. She pulled her head back so she could kiss him, and he kissed her back, still holding her tightly against him. "Welcome home," she whispered.

"I missed you, sweetheart," he whispered back, kissing her again.

Now that the initial shock at seeing him there had passed, she slapped his chest. "I hate you guys for tricking me!"

Howard burst out laughing as Raj emerged from the men's room, holding his phone and smirking. "We thought we'd manage to surprise you."

"You jerks," she said, grinning. She looked over at the astro – physicist. "Come here, Raj." He walked over and the three group – hugged.

* * *

><p>"So," Howard said as Bernadette eased the car out of the parking lot and into traffic. "Now that you've updated me on Shamy getting hitched and every single thing Iris has done, how's Penny?"<p>

"I was saving that for last," she said. "A lot's happened since I talked to you. First, they've decided on Savannah for a name since it was the only one that wasn't either named after a scientist, a Kardashian, someone on Sex and the City, and that, most importantly, Amy approved."

Howard and Raj laughed. "Of course."

"Uh – huh," Bernadette said. "They went out and got baby stuff yesterday; Penny's kinda freaked out by the breast pump but she'll get over it, and actually I don't think I was supposed to tell you that, so don't mention it, and she's been really uncomfortable sleeping so Leonard got her one of those C shaped body pillows and it seems to help. We're currently taking bets as to when she'll have the baby."

"Oh, oh!" Raj said, waving his hand from the back seat. "I want in. I'm betting Tuesday. Most babies are born on Tuesday."

"That's because scheduled C – sections are usually…"

"Zzzzt!" Bernadette said.

Howard kept on. "They usually aren't on Tuesday, because all the other babies are being born that day. Workload, you know, for the doctors."

"Of course," Raj said. "I know about these things."

He glanced at Bernadette. She gave him a discreet thumbs up.

**Again, sorry it was a little late – and sorry it was a little short!**


	70. Hofstadter Approved

**I apologize for the delay in posting. I had some issues with the website, my Word, and summer classes started so I was a bit distracted. Not to mention the season finales of How I Met Your Mother and The Mentalist (the latter was so ridiculously freaking good, by the way) and the freaking out that accompanied both took up some of my time. So, again, I apologize, both for not posting these last few days and for my long winded initial apology. :D**

**Oh, and I still don't own anything. Which would be depressing if that didn't mean I'd be responsible for everyone's feelings about canon fact. Eek.**

"You're home!" Amy jumped up from the couch and bounced over to the engineer and astrophysicist. "You're home, you're home!" She jumped at them, enveloping both in a bear hug and causing both sojourners to stagger backward a few steps.

"Hey…Amy," Howard said, looking a bit confused.

"Someone's a bit excited, I guess," Bernadette said, laughing.

"I'll say," Raj said. "I can count on one hand the number of times she's spoken to me."

"Of course I'm excited, you guys were gone for a long time!" Amy said happily, hugging them again. Then she pulled back, looking at Raj. "Seriously? You've had alcohol already today?"

Raj frowned. "I haven't seen you guys in months, I didn't want to be standing awkwardly in the background while everyone else is happy." He looked down. "Why are you all judging me?"

"Oh, baby," Penny said slowly getting to her feet and walking over to hug him. "We're not judging you."

"Oh good," Raj said, hugging her back. He pulled away and bent over slightly. "Hello, baby!" he said, his face inches from Penny's stomach. "I'd wave, but you can't see me!"

Penny raised an eyebrow and grinned sideways at Leonard. "She'll be able to see you in a couple weeks," she said.

"Getting close, huh?" Howard asked even though everyone already knew. "I heard you've been having some trouble sleeping."

She nodded. "I have, but Leonard got me a pillow that's been helping. Did you see the crib?" She turned and pointed toward where the baby bed sat by her table near the window. "We'll have it in our room, of course, once she's born, but there was more room out here for when we assembled it."

"Looks nice," Howard said, "looks nice. Oh! That reminds me." He held an arm out to the side and Bernadette handed him her purse. Reaching inside, he pulled something out. "Made this for you guys."

"What is it?" Penny said, taking the wiry object and untangling it. "Oh, it's a space mobile!" She smiled, holding it up and out to see the planets, rockets, and space station hanging down, bobbing with kinetic energy. "Look, Leonard!"

"A science mobile to hang from our daughter's crib?" Leonard nodded. "Hofstadter Approved."

Howard cocked his head, looking from Penny to Bernadette. "Hofstadter Approved?"

"It's a new thing he's trying," Penny said. "We all have different opinions on if it's working or not."

"I think it's working," Amy informed them. She gasped. "We could get stickers made! 'Hofstadter Approved'! And stick them on everything. Aside from Penny's Care Bears. He still doesn't like those."

"Well, now that we've been updated on all the _important_ things," Howard said, "I was thinking we could all go out to eat tonight?"

"I'm good with that," Raj said. "I could use some real food."

"As long as we aren't out too late," Penny said. "I'm in bed by eleven every night now. Not that I sleep for the first hour with Kicky here pummeling my organs, but at least I get some shut eye."

"I'm in too," Leonard said. "We want to know _everything _about your trip. Including how many times you and Bernadette were referred to as Mr. and Dr. Loops."

"Too many to want to share," Howard said.

"Several times per day," Raj interjected.

"So!" Howard clapped his hands together. "Everyone's in?"

"I can't stay out too late either," Bernadette said. "Gilda's dropping Iris off at our place tomorrow while she flies back East to see her sick mother."

"Iris?" Howard said. "You seem to be spending a lot of time with Iris recently."

Bernadette appearing to be caught off guard, cleared her throat. "Yeah? You jealous?"

Howard looked confused. "What?"

"What?" Amy asked.

"What?" Penny and Raj added, nearly in unison.

"What?" Leonard asked.

Bernadette, who had been looking toward the crib, snapped back to look at Howard. "What?"

He surveyed all of them. "I…I am so confused."

"Well, then you shouldn't go away again," Bernadette said, coming over to him, curling her arms around his right one and kissing his cheek. "You'll fall out of the loop."

"Um, I was in _orbit!_" Howard said. "How much more in the loop can I be?"

**I am apologizing up the wall today, but I am sorry this was a very short chapter. Things that happened in it do come back later in the fic, but not immediately so I couldn't connect it to the next section well enough to group them together. **

**I should be back on my regular every other day posting schedule from here on out.**


	71. To Walk This Line

**I would say "I don't own anything," but it occurs to me that I do own the baby. It also occurs to me that that sentence could very easily be taken out of context. **

Penny never expected to go into labor alone. Despite the fact that she'd thought up pretty much every horrible childbirth scenario in her head, her conscious had always tried to comfort her while putting Leonard with her in her thoughts. She'd always imagined waking up in the middle of the night, rolling over, and shaking Leonard awake. She didn't expect the Braxton Hicks contractions that she'd been feeling off and on for a month to start strengthening and causing real discomfort while Leonard was at New Comic Book Night with Sheldon, Howard, Raj, and Amy.

At least they weren't too bad yet. They were coming about every twenty minutes, and the pain wasn't even bad enough for her to stop what she was doing. But they were there enough for her to notice – she'd pretty much blocked the real Braxton Hicks ones out – and after the first few, Penny went into her room and spooned the pillow Leonard had gotten her in an attempt to take pressure off of her back. She didn't call anyone. It would just worry Leonard, and she didn't need anyone yet. These contractions could very likely go away; she was ten days from her due date and while that wasn't terribly early it wasn't close enough to guarantee that this was it. She passed some of the time trying to decide if she wanted them to go away. She most certainly did not feel ready for this, but who actually did? What first time mother felt labor start and punched the air with a rousing "let's get this party _started!_" Sure, there was probably someone who had actually done that, but Penny had never been unique, and most of the other women in this position were likely feeling just as not – ready as Penny felt now. But, she reasoned, she was likely to feel unprepared no matter when this happened, and it's not like she had a choice in the matter, anyway. And she w_as_ excited…Penny decided that she hoped that they'd keep it up. She didn't want to have to walk this line between excitement and panic more than once per child.

More than once _per child._ Damn, she was already thinking about more. Penny shook her head. _This is most definitely not the time for that._

She shifted her weight slightly. After this next step she'd be able to sleep better again, if not for long periods of time a deep sleep when she did doze off; she was never a big fan of sleeping on her stomach, or at least she hadn't been since adolescence had made doing so more uncomfortable than before, but since she hadn't been physically capable of doing so in several months, she was really wanting to. Penny wondered momentarily if she'd lose this interest in doing what she hardly ever did once it was possible that she could again; she _was_ contrary like that. She had fallen asleep on her stomach once in the past year, but that had been one of the nights where she and Leonard had feared cancer and it was the best way to be close to him. She was fooling herself, anyway, she knew she wouldn't be sleeping through the night for a long time. She selfishly wondered if it wasn't too late to buy formula and bottle feed so Leonard could do it too. Then she wondered if she'd be hit with the mother instinct and not want Leonard or anyone else anywhere near their daughter. She decided that she liked showing off more than anything else, so she'd probably be throwing out nets, both to gather people in to look at the baby and to keep Sheldon away if he got too obnoxious.

Her thoughts went to Leonard. It was a half an hour past when he was usually home. And he was never late. She lifted her head and looked at the clock, feeling panic rising as the digital numbers all switched simultaneously to signal the beginning of a new hour. He was late. He was never late. Something must have happened. They'd call her, or they'd show up at her door, he's been hurt, he's been killed, and she'd be the little girlfriend to receive the news and then have the baby in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, causing the news reporters to document her grief and the little ray of sunshine in her dark world and God, this isn't how she wanted to appear on television. It was too cliché, too Hollywood, and as much as Penny had dreamed of the H word she didn't want to be some stereotypical, seemingly scripted reality drama. Ten years ago that would have been her dream, Hell, half that many years ago she'd have still jumped at the chance, she sure had been desperate enough to do anything short of porn, but not now, now she had more self – respect, she had friends, she had Leonard, and she had this baby and she wasn't going to be one of those mothers who sold their privacy out to the cameras.

Penny felt her breath coming shorter, like it had when she'd first read about the ovarian cancer, and she wondered if being aware of a panic attack meant it was harder or easier to come out of while alone. She sat up and sucked in a long, deep breath, closing her eyes. This was California. California had traffic. Stuart had expressed an interest in the presentation Leonard was going to give tomorrow. He could be taking the time to explain it while fending off Sheldon's insulting remarks. Perhaps Sheldon was holding them up, trying to get Amy interested in whatever he was buying. There were a million reasons why he wasn't home. It was only a half an hour, after all.

She took in another breath, closing her eyes and letting out slowly. She could no longer feel her heart pounding and felt proud at her success in calming down.

Penny laid back down and curled her arms and legs around the pillow, resting her cheek on it and closing her eyes again. She could feel herself start to relax and put a hand on her stomach as if to relieve any tension the baby might have gotten from her. But the baby appeared relatively indifferent; she kicked her mother in the hand. "Little brat," Penny murmured fondly.

"Penny?"

Her head shot up at the sound of Leonard's voice. "In here!"

He entered her bedroom and smiled. "I got you something."

She propped herself up on an elbow. "Give me."

"It's in the living room," Leonard said. "I got you a birthing ball. For when we're waiting out the early stages at home. Sitting on it can help take pressure off of you, as well as helping to get the baby in the correct position."

"Mmmm." Penny shifted her weight. "Well, you picked that up just in time," she said, putting a hand on her stomach. "I think she's ready to make her appearance."

Leonard's eyebrows shot up. "It's starting? Oh my God…"

She nodded. "But they're really sparse. Don't freak out." She wondered if it would bother her to stretch and decided not to try it. "Nothing's going to happen tonight." She patted the bed beside her. "Come to me?"

Leonard moved toward the bed and climbed into it, taking her face in his hands and kissing her. When he pulled back, she smiled at him. "Spoon you?" he asked, and she nodded, shifting her weight again to get into the correct position. His arm came around her to rest on her stomach. "Does that feel good?"

"Mmmhmm," she affirmed, closing her eyes. "Ugh," she said, putting her own hand on her bump.

"You okay?" Leonard asked in a whisper, his mouth near her ear.

"Uh-huh," she said. "Right now they're just more uncomfortable than anything else."

"Try to get some sleep tonight," Leonard said. "Then in the morning we can…oh, crap." He sat up, running his hand gently down her side. "I'll need to call in on that presentation I'm doing tomorrow."

"No," Penny said, sliding her hand over his and squeezing it. "You've been looking forward to that for two weeks. Nothing's going to happen while you're gone, okay? Do your lecture."

"I'm not going to leave you alone tomorrow," Leonard said firmly.

Penny rolled her eyes. "Don't play hero, Leonard. It's okay. If anything starts accelerating while you're gone, I call you. You can leave. People will understand. It's not a big deal, okay?"

"But-"

"No," she said, craning her neck around to see his face as she tapped him on the nose. "Go do your science guy thing."

"I will if you promise to get some sleep," he whispered, readjusting his position so he could run the fingers of his free hand through her hair. "We've got a big day tomorrow."

Penny smiled. "Deal, Dr. Hofstadter."


	72. Buckle Up

**New chapter time! See? I'm adjusting to my summer schedule and giving you guys your updates on time. : ) Enjoy!**

It was four in the morning when Penny became too uncomfortable to remain in bed. Slowly, as to not wake Leonard up, she rose from the bed and moved into the living room. The pink sixty five centimeter ball was resting against the back of the couch, and she rolled it a few feet away, studying it and wondering if it'd help make her feel more comfortable. She tried to settle onto it by straddling it, but her center of balance was too off – kilter for that to work, so she walked around to the front of it, sat down, and shifted her weight until she was on the center, her feet shoulder width apart. She put her hands on her hips and let out a deep breath.

She wasn't sure exactly what the ball was supposed to do. Take pressure off her reproductive areas, yeah, and help the baby get into the right position…but how the hell did the baby know if she was sitting on the ball or not? Penny rotated her hips slowly, letting the ball move her as she balanced, hoping she was doing this correctly. She had to be, if the shape and the moving abilities of the ball weren't the reason that people used it, then what in the Hell was? She could sit on a stool. Or a couch. Or, as Sheldon would say, sit in a bouncy castle. She put her hands on the back of the couch for support. She certainly hoped she was doing the right thing when it came to helping the little girl position herself correctly, because there wasn't any pressure – at least not yet. She wondered if that was normal. It was starting to scare her, the things that she didn't know, but each time the words _the baby_ passed through her mind, she could only get excited. She and Leonard were about to become parents – officially.

But these Cow dammed contractions. They didn't _really_ hurt if she was honest with herself, the first few that she thought did, just a bit, were likely 'hurting' because of power of suggestion. These were just annoying, mild, but just enough to make her agitated. She felt another one start and looked at the clock. Twenty-three minutes. Not completely sporadic, but certainly not regular enough for Penny to even be convinced that this was actually starting. She leaned against the couch again, letting out a long, slow breath and feeling the discomfort ease up a bit. "There we go," she mumbled, closing her eyes. This position was much more comfortable than lying in bed, but after a few minutes she felt herself starting to drift off and wobble a bit on the ball. Her eyes flew open and she steadied herself, not wanting to fall off and jostle the baby.

"Honey." She turned her head and smiled as Leonard came over to her. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm okay," she said, tipping her head back to smile at him as he came to stand behind her. "I tried not to wake you; you shouldn't be up. You have that presentation today." She frowned. "You promised."

"I can manage that on a few hours' sleep," Leonard told her, sliding around the furniture, sitting on the couch facing the back and putting his hands on hers.

"Do you think you can manage coaching me through all this on a few hours' sleep?" She asked jokingly.

"Oh right, you do have a point there," Leonard said. "I can barely tolerate you when I'm well rested."

"Oooh, harsh," Penny said.

"Are you okay?"

She furrowed her eyebrows and looked from the couch to Leonard. "Huh?"

"Oh," Leonard said, closing his eyes and nodding. "You were talking about my comment."

"Ooh," Penny said teasingly. "You're going to be one of those super paranoid guys, aren't you?"

"I'm not paranoid," Leonard said. "I mean, my work teaches me to be cautious about everything, but the absolute definition of paranoia is…"

"Hey, I'm teasing you," she said, reaching up to swat his chin. "I think it's adorable."

"Well good," Leonard said, leaning across the gap between them and kissing her forehead. "Good."

"Though since we told the doctor that I didn't want people telling me what to do until I asked, you really only have to focus on keeping me from dozing off." Penny let out a deep sigh. "I feel awake now, but I'm terrified I'll hit a wall later on and fall asleep in the delivery room."

"I don't think you have to worry about that," Leonard said. "The contractions get really intense during delivery and even more so during transition, the period directly before delivery. It'd be next to impossible for you to…" he trailed off at the expression on Penny's face and put on a smile that she knew was s_upposed_ to make her feel better. "But it's going to be just fine."

"Yes," Penny said, taking his hand. "Let's stick to _that_ method of making me feel better." She let out a breath and put her forehead against the couch.

"You okay?" he asked her.

She put her head to the side, resting her cheek on top of their hands. "I'm just so uncomfortable, especially now that she's all settled down there." She shifted her weight again.

"Is she in the right position?" Leonard asked.

She shrugged. "I don't think there's any way to tell." Her head shot up. "Oh God, she's probably not. I'm betting you she's not, she's probably curled up on her side right now." Penny got up and began wandering around the apartment as if it would help her figure out exactly how the little girl was sitting.

"Whoa, okay," Leonard said, getting up and stepping in front of her, placing his hands on her upper arms, and gently pulling her as close to him as she could get, her stomach coming against his own. He leaned over and kissed her forehead, prompting her to close her eyes. "That's not what I was saying, okay? I was trying to make conversation and…" he trailed off and looked down. "Was that a contraction?"

Her eyes widened. "You can feel that?"

"Yes." He looked uncomfortable. "Are they still irregular?

"Starting to get regular, I think. That one was eleven minutes. But then it could be a half hour until the next one. So I guess not. All I know is they're uncomfortable."

"I believe it," Leonard said. "Even I could tell that was uncomfortable!"

"You find a lot of things uncomfortable," she joked. Then her eyes closed and she leaned against him. "God, Leonard, I need to sleep."

"Here," Leonard said, grabbing her hands. "Get back on the ball and lean against the couch. Maybe you can at least rest your eyes."

"That doesn't work, I'll fall off."

"No you won't. I'll be there."

Penny looked at him almost shyly. "Could you give me another back massage?"

"I wouldn't want the eagle to carry you to its nest," Leonard said jokingly.

She slapped him. "You've gotten so much better." She walked back around to the ball and got settled. Leonard stood behind her, seeming to feel awkward with the height difference. They usually did this while sitting down. He stood for several seconds before trying to sit on the ball behind her, which almost sent both of them to the floor. "What are you doing?" she asked, laughing. "Get a bar stool!"

He nodded. "Right." He retrieved the stool and began to work on her back. "How does that feel?"

"Mmhmm," she said, resting her head on her hands again and closing her eyes. "Thank you." She turned her head to try and see him. "Think you can do my lower back?" She felt his hands relocate and closed her eyes. "That's good."

"Good," he said. She looked at him again. "Sorry you're up."

"If you can be up, I can be up," he said, pausing with his massage for a second. "I'm sorry you're so uncomfortable. I wish it was me."

"No you don't," she said.

"Okay, maybe not, but still, I…" he sighed, pausing in his massage again, resting his hands on her back. "I just hate seeing you like this."

"If _this_ bothers you," Penny said. "I suggest you buckle up."


	73. Oh Eight Hundred

**Sorry I didn't update on the second day – work got in the way again. :/**

**For the people asking, no, I am not a mother myself. Everything in this fic related to pregnancy is from research I did talking to people who have had children or internet research on medical journals. That said, please remember it's a fanfic for a sitcom, so I'm not going to write anything too dramatic or graphic whether it would make it more realistic or not. I have limits! : )**

**But what I don't have, of course, is ownership of these characters.**

Leonard came out of the bedroom. "How does my tie look?"

Penny was sitting on the ball, looking down at her phone. She glanced over at him. "Better than I could do it, that's for sure."

"Well, that's not terribly difficult," he joked. "Now are you sure you'll be okay?"

"Leonard." Penny stood, raised her eyebrows and stared at him, and Leonard smiled. "Go."

"Yes ma'am," Leonard said, putting his hands on her stomach and kissing first Penny, and dropping to kiss her just above her naval. "Now," he said, talking to the baby, "don't you pull any stunts until I get back."

"She won't, Leonard," Penny said, smiling. "They don't even really hurt yet. And we're still going kinda erratically. It's possible it won't even happen today, you know."

"I know." He kissed her again and grabbed his flash drive. "We've read the books. Call me if anything happens."

"Mmmhmm," Penny said, smiling as she closed the door after him.

She put her hand on her stomach as it tightened again on her way back to the ball, nine minutes after the last one. Nine minutes? That still wasn't anything to be overly concerned about, but how in the Hell did it go from twenty – three minutes to nine? Would the next one be nine, or a longer time? Or even a shorter time? "_Hours_," she reminded the little girl inside of her. "You hear me, baby girl? Hours."

Penny supposed that now was as good a time as any to find out if their daughter would be a good listener.

* * *

><p>"You're late."<p>

"Hello, I'm doing quite well, and yourself?"

Sheldon let out a breath. "Amy, the relationship agreement states that when one member of the relationship is out of town they will call the other ever second day at nine A.M. Pacific Coast time. It is nine oh nine."

"Forgive me," Amy said. "I was in the ladies' room, and I will be home in a matter of hours."

"Well I suppose you called as soon as you could," Sheldon said.

Amy cocked her head, appearing confused that he was forgiving her so easily. "I would like to hypothesize that you're only like this with me."

"How do you mean?" Sheldon inquired.

"Well," Amy said, "you let me get away with stuff that you'd award strikes to your friends for the same offences, which is my evidence for the hypothesis."

"Oh yes," Sheldon said, nodding. "Only with you. Even if it wasn't social convention for husband and wife to let the wife walk all over the husband, it's in the relationship agreement. Which I am following. Which, seeing that it is now nine ten, you are not."

"I thought I was forgiven."

"This isn't church!" Sheldon exclaimed.

There was a silence. "Moving on," Amy said. "Is Penny home? She didn't answer her cell phone when I tried to call her at zero eight hundred this morning."

"Zero eight hundred?" Sheldon said. "Are you on a military base?"

"Don't be silly," Amy said. "I simply felt the need to change it up a bit."

"Ah yes," Sheldon said. "I'm a fan of routine myself, but I've heard that's good for relationships." He stood. "I'll go and see." Standing up, he moved across the hall and rapped on the door three times. "Penny?" He half expected her to shout some sarcastic comment through the door, and was surprised when she didn't, not a single time. Waiting for a moment longer, Sheldon moved back across the hall. "She does not appear to be home. Perhaps she went with Leonard to his presentation."

"Okay," Amy said. "Well, I thought I should tell you that I will be arriving home earlier than planned today. My plans here have been cut short."

"Great," Sheldon said. "There is a _Star Wars_ marathon airing tonight. And per the relationship agreement, you must attend."

Amy sighed. "I'll bring my lawyer."

"Oh please," Sheldon said. "If the husband has to forgive, the wife can pretend to be interested in everything the husband is interested in."

"Name one wife who has done that."

"Well, for starters..."

"And they have to be real people."

"Rats." Sheldon thought a moment. "I'll get back to you." Sheldon began to close the laptop and then pushed it back open. "Mark and Gilda! Mark and Gilda!"

Amy thought for a moment. Fair enough.

**Sorry it's short, boy, I'm just failing you guys all over the place! I apologize.**


	74. What To Do

**Still don't own anything. Although I guess I own this headache that I've got.**

Penny sat on the couch, reading a magazine and trying to ignore the aching that enveloped her stomach every ten minutes or so, relieved that at least they were regular now. She watched the clock. Leonard would be about halfway through his presentation by now; in another hour or so he'd be home. She just hoped Sheldon didn't try to find her again. She didn't want to talk to someone who would probably manage to insult her.

She put down the magazine. It wasn't distracting her, not by a long shot. Getting up, she started to pace. She'd be lying if she said she wasn't scared; no amount of reading could prepare her for this. The waiting was so much worse than the pain; especially waiting alone. The pain really wasn't that bad yet, in fact, she was rather proud of herself when it came to that little part of the process. She just didn't like Leonard not being here with her, even though she knew exactly where he was and there was really no rush at all for him to get back.

At least it wouldn't be rush hour when Leonard set out for home.

But damn, she wanted him here. At least he had his presentation to focus on, she didn't have anything to keep her mind occupied, and who knew how long she'd have to wait? Penny reached for her phone.

Bernadette picked up on the first ring. "Hey, preggers!"

"Not for long," Penny said dryly. "Can you come over?"

Bernadette's excitement could be sensed over the line. "Now? What about Leonard?"

"He'll be home soon," Penny said. "Well, relatively soon. I just don't want to be by myself. I'm bored. I need company. Will you wait with me?"

"Yes," Bernadette said. "Absolutely. Question, if I don't break speed records to get there, am I going to walk into your apartment and find her already…among us?"

Penny managed a laugh at Bernadette's word choice. "No."

"Okay, sure," Bernadette said. "I'm on my way."

Penny could hear the microbiologist grab her keys before the call ended. Satisfied, Penny went back to the couch. She was reaching for another magazine when her stomach tightened again. She leaned back and put a hand over her naval, tipping her head back against the couch. "Dammit!" she blurted, closing her eyes. She knew that this was nothing; in a few hours she'd be wishing that it was like this; she knew that her mind was already making it worse because she was alone. But she couldn't just pretend she was being tickled because she knew in a few hours it'd be worse. This was as bad as she knew it thus far. And she didn't like it. Not one bit.

"Bernadette's coming," she whispered, whether to the baby or herself, or both, she wasn't sure. "Bernadette's coming."

She wasn't comfortable. She shifted her weight several times, and finally found a position that she could bear. Then, less than a minute later, the baby moved, rendering her current position intolerable. She shifted her weight again. Not much better.

Finally, she lay down on the couch, her head level with the rest of her body. "Bernadette's coming."

She felt the baby try to move again, and was almost grateful at the contraction that clenched her womb tightly and prevented it from doing so. This way, she wouldn't have to get comfortable again, and hopefully by the time her daughter was able to move again, she would no longer want to.

She put a hand on her rock – hard stomach. "Bernadette's coming," she said, no louder than a whisper. "It's going to be okay."

She wondered to herself if she was really talking to the baby, and then decided that she really wasn't. She was the scared one, the one who knew what was going on, and the one who lived in fear of disappointing the man that she loved. The baby had no idea what was happening…but then maybe that meant that Savannah was even more afraid than Penny. Savannah hadn't read the books. Savannah didn't have internet access. Savannah didn't understand.

Savannah. Penny had never thought of the baby by name in such a casual manner before; she'd been too afraid of jinxing it. But whether the little girl was born or still in utero, she was still Savannah, whether she knew it or not. And realizing that Savannah didn't know what was happening made Penny feel terrible – what if the little girl was scared? Babies weren't as capable of learning certain things as older humans, but they knew hunger, and fear, and probably frustration. Penny was well aware that babies were sometimes in shock at the cooler temperatures and bright lights that hit them when they were born, was it really so implausible to think that they were afraid while they were being born? Could there be a link between babies that tried to move and were unable during contractions and, say, claustrophobia? Penny was no scientist, but she knew something of associations, and all of a sudden she felt selfish for feeling unprepared for childbirth after all the reading she'd done. At least she, as the mother, knew that it was coming. At least she could prepare. Savannah would have just been living her life, stretching, doing somersaults, sucking her thumb…and then all of a sudden the walls would clamp around her and force her away from the warm, relatively quiet safe haven she had been enjoying her entire life. Penny knew what it was like to have her world change, and she knew what surprise was like. And she knew that change and surprise could both be scary.

She also knew that babies knew their mother's voice at birth, and preferred it to other female tones. "Savannah," Penny said, putting her hands on her stomach and rubbing it gently, "it's your mommy." At the word 'mommy' Penny felt tears spring to her eyes, good tears – at least she thought they were good tears – and she continued. "It's all going to be okay. Don't be scared, sweetie. Let that be my job."

It was then that Penny remembered something else about associations. What if the she talked to Savannah while the baby was afraid, and then her daughter would continue to feel her world around her change…would Savannah associate Penny's voice with fear, not comfort? Things that happened as a child stayed with a person their entire lives – what if Savannah always had some unconscious fear of her mother? What if she always felt like Penny wasn't there for her, deep down because Penny wasn't able to stop what was scaring her now?

She was probably overreacting. But she couldn't help it.

"I…" Penny pressed her lips together and squeezed her eyes shut, but the tears still escaped. And they weren't good, happy tears, not this time. She knew that for certain. _Do I talk to you? You can hear; are you listening for me? Or will you resent me for not being able to make it stop? What do you want?_

"I'm sorry, Savannah," she managed, whispering. "I don't know what to do."

* * *

><p>Howard looked surprised when Bernadette encountered him on the stairs. "Where are you going?"<p>

"Penny's. Why aren't you at work?"

"I called in. We were going to have our romantic day together today, remember?"

"We were going to have that in like three hours," Bernadette said.

"I know," Howard said, "but with me having been away, I thought we could spend a little more time together."

"Look, honey," Bernadette said, putting a hand on his chest. "While I appreciate being on your to do list, Penny's gone into labor and I get to keep her company until Leonard gets home."

Howard stopped. "Well, as long as you were genuine in your appreciation."

She laughed, rolled her eyes, and kissed him on the cheek. "Yes. Yes I was. Though that's not what I was really hoping you'd get from that sentence."

"No, no, I understood it all." He made a sweeping motion with his arm toward the door. "Baby. Go."

**I know, still no baby. Don't hate me. But in real life, it doesn't happen like it does in some books or movies or fanfics where you get this part in five minutes. I know from people I've talked to that this part can be long and sometimes boring, so while I hope I don't bore you readers, I'd like to make this relatively realistic.**


	75. Field Experience

**New chapter time! I'm going to be working every day this week, so updating may be a bit iffy for a while since I'm reworking part of this next bit. But this one's a little longer than the last couple, so hopefully it'll tide you all over until then!**

**And I still don't own anything…gosh, that's depressing.**

Bernadette burst through the door to 4B without even knocking, breathing hard from running up four flights of stairs. Penny was lying on the couch, looking pale. "Penny!" she shouted, rushing up to her friend and sitting down next to her. "Are you okay?"

She nodded as she sat up. "Yeah," she said, in a voice that didn't totally sound like her. It lacked…substance. "Yeah."

"You don't look okay," Bernadette said, feeling anxious. Penny was too pale, her voice sounded like she wasn't getting enough air, and her cheeks looked like she'd been crying. "Seriously, be honest with me!"

"All right," Penny said, taking in a deep breath. She had been looking down at her knees; now she looked over at Bernadette. "I'm scared."

"Aw," Bernadette said, smiling despite her growing concern for her friend. "That's normal."

"No," Penny said, shaking her head. Her hands went to her stomach. "So much has gone wrong. So…_so_ much has. And we've been…lucky so far…we've been able to keep her. I've been able to keep her alive, by…both conscious and…unconscious actions. But at every stage, something has happened…now we're at the last part…something is bound to go wrong…" she paused for a few deep breaths, looking down again. Then she returned her line of vision to Bernadette. "And what if this time our luck runs out? What if something happens to one of us? Or both of us?" She put her face in her hands. She was still afraid that Savannah would be scared of her, but she spilled to Bernadette what was currently terrifying her. "What if I fail him?"

"The baby's a girl," Bernadette reminded her gently.

"Not Savannah!" Penny shrieked.

"Then who?"

"_Leonard_!" Penny cried. "He's been so great, so supportive…he's always there for me and God, Bernadette, if I can't deliver here…" She trailed off, furrowing her brow. "That wasn't supposed to be a pun. But I certainly wouldn't call it a _happy _accident." She frowned a moment more, then continued in the same frantic tone. "If I can't bring this baby into the world safely – and this pregnancy has suggested that I'm going to have a hell of a time of it – then I won't be able to live with myself and…" she trailed off, sucking in a deep breath. "God dammit, there's another one." She tilted her head way down and pressed both palms hard into the couch, her hair falling forward.

"Okay, sweetie," Bernadette said, rising and taking Penny's arm. "Listen to me. You've read every single book you can get your hands on. You've talked to Gilda, and no matter what she says, watching her birthing video probably wasn't going to add much to your knowledge anyway. You'd just hear her barking at Mark to take notes for her board. You know what is going to happen and you're ready for it. And you won't fail Leonard. Honestly, I don't believe that you can. He's proud of the very breath you take."

Penny couldn't help but smile, and then it was gone as quickly as it had come. "No one can be proud of everything, Bernadette. No matter what he says. Feelings are deeper than words." She wiped her eyes, and Bernadette saw tears in the corners again. "And what if Savannah's scared and I can't help her?"

"Just as many babies have to go through labor as women," Bernadette said. "Actually more, since you know, twins and…that. And most of us are perfectly fine. You're just freaking out because you had no one here to talk to, and on some level you had to have known that, because you called me. And I'm here now." She dropped back down on the couch and pulled some hair from Penny's eyes to tuck behind her ear. "It's going to be okay. You're not alone now, okay? I'm here, and we're going to get through this without you dying of boredom."

Penny looked at her knees – what she could see of them – and nodded, glancing then up at her friend. "Thank you."

Bernadette leaned over and hugged her. "I saw Sheldon on the stairs – "

"You didn't tell him, did you?"

"No," Bernadette said. "I know better than that. He did say Amy will be home in a couple of hours."

"Oh good," Penny said, shifting her weight.

"He also said Amy has a surprise for you."

"I hope it's a stimulant," she grumbled, resting her head on her hands. "Or maybe some rat poison."

Bernadette leaned back. "Rat poison! Did you say 'rat poison'?"

"Yeah," Penny said. "I saw a mouse in the laundry room the other day and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it."

* * *

><p>"Okay, thanks Raj," Bernadette hung up the phone and looked at Penny. "Raj says that Leonard's doing the question and answer session right now, so we can expect him home within the hour. He told the people beforehand about you, so I don't think anyone will really keep him very long."<p>

The information didn't seem to comfort her friend. "I just want him to get here," Penny said, biting her lip in an attempt not to start crying.

"I know, sweetie, I know," Bernadette said, squeezing her hand. "But it's going to be okay. Come on, let's walk a little more."

Penny shuffled forward, swallowing. "I can't walk. It's too uncomfortable."

"So do you want to lie down?" Bernadette asked.

Penny sighed. "I want Leonard."

Bernadette lowered her head. "I can't be Leonard, Penny."

"Oh, Bernie, of course I'm glad you're here!" Penny said. "I'd be alone otherwise."

Bernadette smiled. "Come on." She stood up. "Lay down. I'll get you water."

Penny sighed and shifted her weight until she was lying on her side. "This thing isn't big enough for me to get comfortable on my back," she commented.

"That's not the way women give birth anymore," Bernadette told her.

"Yes," Penny said, putting a hand on her stomach. "I know. I've read the books." She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, wrinkling her nose slightly. "I can't get comfortable," she said, shifting her weight. "Dammit. Contraction, Bernadette, time?"

Bernadette checked her watch. "Still the same amount of time," she told her. "Still the exact same amount of time. No rush to go anywhere. Leonard will get here."

"I'm not worried about that," Penny said. "I just really, really want him here. God." Her lower lip trembled.

"Hey hey hey!"

Bernadette and Penny turned in sync to see Gilda standing in the doorway, white board under her arm. "Gilda," Penny said in surprise, coughing in a failed attempt to hide the fact that she was upset. "What are you doing here? How did you know…"

"Howard. And I came in case you needed me," Gilda said. "As a woman who has given birth herself. And clearly, clearly you do need me."

Penny sighed. "No offense, Gilda, really, but…"

"I know you're going to say you need Leonard," Gilda said, holding up a hand. "And you're absolutely right; you do need him, especially as things go farther. You'll do better with him there. I know I did. But no matter how much he is going to tell you that he understands, or he knows, or anything like that, the fact remains that he doesn't. He's not a woman, and nothing that men experience is anything like this. No matter what guys say, kidney stones are _not _the same thing. So I'm going to tell you something and before you ask no, I did not work this out on a board. This is field experience, right here." Gilda put a hand on Penny's stomach. "The pain is going to get worse. You're going to get to a point where it feels like it will never end and that you can't take it. You're going to feel helpless. But when you get there-Hell, even now, but especially then-just remember that you know what's going to happen. You've read the books. You've watched the videos. You refused to watch mine, but no hard feelings, and the others were very informational. This is a process, and no matter how different they each are it's always relatively the same when you get down to it. You get through this first stage, the contractions get longer, stronger, and closer together. Then you're in transition, and it's hell. Then you get to the pushing stage. Then you have a little baby to hold and to love. So when you get to the point where you want to die, just remember, _this is how far I am in this process._ Think about labor as a spectrum, and you're almost to the end. And remember that everything that happens to you is supposed to." Gilda took a step back and nodded. "And it's all going to be okay. I promise."

Penny smiled. "Thanks." She reached out her hand, and Gilda took it and squeezed. "Thanks a lot. I mean it."

"Now," Gilda said, setting her board on the coffee table. "We're going to do some calculations. Lots of calculations."

"No," Penny said, sitting up, "we're really not."

"Oh come on, it'll be fun," she said, looking genuinely excited and not just for Penny's benefit. "It'll distract you!"

"No offense," Penny said, putting a hand on Gilda's wrist, "but it may actually make me want to focus on this labor _more_."

"Well," Gilda said, looking completely confused. "I'm not sure I understand."

"Let me put it this way," Penny said. "I dropped out of college. You try to get me too involved with equations while I'm trying to have a baby, and I may jump out that window."

Gilda put the cap back on her marker. "Fair enough."

The door burst open. "Bestie, Bestie!" Amy cried, running over to the couch. "I'm here! How are you feeling?"

Penny looked around. "How did _you_ know?"

"Howard?" Gilda asked.

Amy looked as if she'd never seen the board wielding woman before in her life. "Why would I talk to Howard?"

"Good question," Penny said.

"Hey!"

"Oh, live with it, Strawberries," Amy said. "In actuality, Penny, Sheldon came over earlier and you didn't answer. Usually, you'd give him some sarcastic remark."

"And from that, you got 'Penny's in labor'?" Gilda asked.

Amy smiled. "I'm her bestie, Gilda. I know stuff."

"So, Amy," Penny said loudly. "Bernadette said you had something for me?"

Amy beamed. "Sure do!" Out of her bag she pulled what looked like a roll of stickers. She pulled one off and slid Penny's shirt partway up, sticking it firmly on Penny's stomach. Penny leaned over to read the black and red sticker. Then she raised an eyebrow and looked up at Amy.

"Hofstadter approved," Bernadette said, nodding. "Nice."

**Hope you liked it! And I promise they won't be hanging out at the apartment for like ten more chapters. But I also can't promise we'll get the baby in the next couple. Things will go forward, but not at the fast pace you get on television.**


	76. A, B, and C

**New chapter time! This one doesn't accomplish much in moving the current focus forward, but it starts to bring together the unresolved stuff that's been building. Next chapter we'll get this storyline moving again.**

**And I still don't own anything. Damn, I've said that so many times it's a wonder that I'm not depressed right now.**

Leonard opened the door to Penny's apartment and walked inside. "Penny, I'm…" he trailed off.

Penny was lying on the couch, her pillow curled around her. Bernadette was sitting on the arm of the couch, a hand resting on Penny's head. Gilda was sitting cross legged on the other side of the coffee table, her back to Leonard. Amy was sitting on the birthing ball, bouncing slightly. They looked up from the board came on the coffee table and smiled at him.

"Hello, everyone," Leonard said.

"Hello!" They chorused, giving Leonard a sense of Penny Blossom déjà vu.

"All the way home I was afraid I'd show up to find more people than I had left," he said, putting down his bag. "Thankfully this was not what I had in mind."

"No worries on that," Penny said. "All she's given me in the past few hours is confirmation that this is a go."

"Well, that's good," he said, moving around the women and the coffee table to bend down and kiss her forehead. "How are you feeling?"

"Peachy." She smiled up at him. "But better since these girls got here. They're distracting me."

"With Candyland?" Leonard asked, raising an eyebrow at the coffee table.

"It's the only board she would let me use to help," Gilda said. "And believe me, it was not my first choice."

"I had a feeling," Leonard said, nodding.

"Excuse me, Leonard," Amy said, "but it is Penny's turn. And she'll never get to the hospital in time if you leave her wandering in the Candy Cane Forest."

"Oh, well, please, forgive me," Leonard said, stepping out of the way.

Penny picked up a card. "Move me two yellows, Ames."

_Knock knock knock _"Friends?"

_Knock knock knock _"Friends?"

_Knock knock knock _"Friends?"

"Come in, Sheldon," Penny called. "What?" she asked when the rest of them looked at her in surprise. "He obviously knows we're in here."

"Hello, everyone," Sheldon said, entering the room. "Oh…" he trailed off. "Penny, are you in the process of giving birth?"

"I'm in the process of getting to that point," she said, wincing slightly as she sat up. "What do you want?"

"I know what he wants," Amy said, standing up. She tore off the end of her sticker roll and handed it to Sheldon. "Your wife made them. You can wear one."

"Of course I _can_…"

"You will."

"I'm already wearing socks that you made me," Sheldon said. "And as you are not a sock maker, that shows a lot of trust that I have put in you."

"Wear the sticker, Sheldon," Bernadette said sternly.

Sheldon looked intimidated and pulled the sticker off the paper, a ripping sound filling the air as the red and black label became too pieces. "Drat," Sheldon said. "Amy, would you please tear me a new one?"

Penny, who had been taking a drink of water, spit it out over the Candy Land board. Leonard put a hand to his mouth, and Bernadette's jaw dropped while Gilda hooted in laughter.

Sheldon looked confused. "What did I miss?"

Bernadette giggled. "Penny, are you thinking of our disastrous road trip?"

She burst out laughing. "No," she said. "But now I am!"

Sheldon still appeared baffled. "Clearly I am above the joke."

"You go with that, sweetie," Penny said, shifting her weight again as Leonard sat down beside her. He wasn't sure what the stickers were and he didn't want to ask. So he looked at his girlfriend and smiled. "How close are they now?"

"Like eight. So just a few more decreases and we'll be good to go. And Gilda gave me one Hell of a pep talk, so I think we're good!"

"Good," Leonard said, putting a hand on her knee. "Now, can I get in on this Candyland game, or…?"

"You can have my spot," Bernadette said, standing up as she looked at her phone. "I need to talk to Amy in the hall."

"You do?" Amy said, looking up. Then her eyes widened slightly. "Oh _right_, you do!" She rose, offering the ball to Gilda.

"Actually," Penny said, getting shakily to her feet. "Let me on that." She lowered herself onto the ball and put her hands on her knees, looking at the Candy Cane board. "Leonard, no matter if you're taking Amy or Bernadette's game, you're still up next."

"Come," Bernadette said, grabbing Amy's arm and pulling her toward the hallway. Sheldon turned to follow them.

"Uh!" Amy said, shaking her head when she noticed. "You can't be out here, Cooper."

Sheldon looked confused yet again. This really wasn't a great day for someone who didn't like to be unsettled, Leonard thought. "Why?" he asked.

"Because this is an A and B conversation," Bernadette said, motioning to Amy and then herself. "So you can C your way out of it!"

"That doesn't work," Sheldon said. "Your first names apply to the A and the B, but my surname is the C, so your formula isn't consistent with…"

"Oh, for the love of God, Sheldon," Bernadette said, gesturing toward 4A. "Go in there!"

"Yes, ma'am," Sheldon said, scurrying across the hall.

"What was that all about?" Leonard asked, moving his game piece to the next purple space.

Gilda took her turn. "That thing with you and Penny wanting to hook Raj up with Missy."

"Did we make any progress on that that I didn't realize?" Leonard asked.

Penny reached for a card. "We dropped a few obvious hints at her while you were at your presentation thingy."

"So, all your girls know about it."

"Yeah," Penny said. "Well, you know how Amy's been rather excitable about, well…everything?"

"The new bride thing still hasn't worn off," Leonard said. "Yes, I know."

"Well, every time Missy texts Raj – "

"Missy's texting Raj?"

Penny nodded, grinning. "For the past half hour! And everytime she texts him, he texts Howard that she texted him, and then he texts Bernadette that she texted him, and then they have to go in the hall and read the message because Amy's terrified that any exhibitions of extreme excitement will make my water break, or something. Or she feels bad getting all happy and squealy while I have to worry about this. I'm really not sure. But they always go outside to read the text, and of course we don't want Sheldon to find out yet, because your stupid comment to him still has him feeling that, on some level, he's supposed to choose who Missy ends up with."

Leonard chuckled. "He should be happy enough that he got to choose who _he_ ends up with!"

"I'm pretty sure forces beyond all control chose the Shamy," Gilda said, laughing.

Leonard nodded. "Tru dat."

Bernadette and Amy came back into the apartment, giggling. "They're practically sexting!" Bernadette said, grinning.

"What? Let me see that?" Gilda said, snatching the phone and reading Howard's relay of what Missy had said to Raj. "That's not sexting! That's barely anything beyond 'how do you do' and knowing Howard he spiced it up a bit before sending it to you."

Penny sighed. "You are talking to the girl that thinks that there's twenty seven 'bases' in the baseball sex metaphor."

"I'd be good with that," Gilda said. "It just makes going all the way seem all the more impressive."

"Hey!" Penny said, realizing how good that sounded. She held up a hand, and Leonard completed the high five.

Leonard grinned at her, then his gaze fell to the empty seat beside him, where Penny's phone lay. "Penny, phone's ringing."

She leaned over and picked it up. "Hello? Oh, hi, Mrs. Cooper! Yes…yes, how did you find out? Well, I think he's exaggerating a bit, I'm fine…oh, well, that's pretty typical…" she covered the mouthpiece. "Sheldon told his mother that I'm disrupting his routine and he doesn't like that." She put the phone back up. "Uh-huh…yes…yeah, that was the plan. Thank you, Mrs. Cooper, I really appreciate it. Okay. Yeah. Bye." She hung up and put a hand to her heart. "That woman is such a sweetheart."

"What did she say?"

"The same old thing," Penny said. "Don't panic, trust myself, my instincts are the best way to go, that kind of stuff." She smiled at Gilda and Bernadette and Amy. "It's just so sweet that she cares so much."

"What did your parents say?" Gilda asked.

"I haven't told them that the baby's coming," Penny said. She smiled over at Leonard, who picked up the ball. "When she's born, we're going to tell our parents. We're _both_ going to call all of them."

"You're going to tell your mother?" Amy said. "I thought you were afraid of her putting it off as no big deal and therefore reminding you of the indifference you endured most of your life."

"I was," Leonard said. "But I'm proud of Penny, and I'm proud of Savannah. And if she doesn't care, then that's her loss."

**At the time of this chapter's publication, this story is on 89 people's favorites list and 123 people's alert list. That is so extremely flattering to me and I thank you all for reading and remaining so dedicated to this story. I appreciate every single reader so much!**


	77. Genetic Integrity

**I apologize for once again breaking my posting pattern. I've worked the past six days and been tired when I get home.**

**And I still don't own anything. Balls.**

The door flew open, making everyone in 4B jump. "Hola, totals!" Howard said, smiling.

"If that was Spanish, it's 'todos', not 'totals'," Gilda said.

Howard stared at her. "It's a board, not a way of life," he shot back.

"Well," she huffed, "that was a little uncalled for."

Howard looked at Penny and nodded. "And how are you?"

She shrugged. "Well, I'm not having much fun, if that's what you're asking."

"Well," Howard said, "maybe Baby Bear will make you feel better."

"Baby Bear from Sesame Street?" Gilda asked.

Howard looked at her again. "No." He reached into his bag and withdrew a small stuffed bear with a pink bow and a shirt that said "New Mommy" on it. "I was going to give it to you after she was born, but…here."

Penny took the bear and smiled. "She's so cute!"

"Baby Bear is from Sesame Street," Gilda said. "That is _a_ baby bear, yes, but Baby Bear, capitalized, is from Sesame Street."

"Well, maybe it's not capitalized," Howard said.

"What, is it communized?" Sheldon joked.

The group's heads swiveled as one to look at him. "Okay, well I can see I'm rather unappreciated in this room, so Penny, good luck with the icky stuff, Leonard, I hope you don't pass out. Gilda. Bernadette. Howard. Come, Amy."

"Come where?" Amy asked.

Sheldon looked confused. "Next door."

"We were over there like half an hour ago. You're just making excuses to leave. I'm staying with my bestie," Amy said.

"Well, I gotta go," Gilda said. "I'm picking Iris up from her aunt's. I'll stop by the hospital later."

"Okay." Leonard was sitting on the arm of the couch, Penny next to him on the seat. She leaned over and put her forehead on his leg, and he put his hand on her back. "You okay?"

"Uh – huh."

He rubbed her back gently. "Your back hurt?"

"Not yet." She sighed. "Can we go in?"

"To the hospital?" Leonard said. "You're not far enough along yet."

"I'm close enough," she protested. "I need to be somewhere else. I think we've lived out the 'feeling more comfortable at home' part of this."

"Okay," Leonard said. "Okay. We can go."

"Ooooh, this is so exciting!" Amy said, jumping up.

"Amy, just so you know," Penny said, "you're not going to be in the room with us."

Amy cleared her throat. "I know."

"We'll all be in the waiting room," Bernadette said, squeezing Amy's hand and smiling. She looked over at Penny. "Do you wanna use my car?"

"I think I prefer a hospital room," she said, lifting her head.

"I mean to drive in," Bernadette said.

"That's okay, Bernadette," Leonard said. "We'll use my car."

"Your car has a flat tire," Amy said.

"My…what?" Leonard glanced at Penny when she put her hand on her stomach and looked at her phone. He squeezed her shoulder and looked back at Amy. "My _what_?"

"You ate the last dumpling without consulting me." Sheldon told him.

"Penny did that!" Leonard said.

Penny looked insulted for being brought into the conversation. "Hey!"

"Have I not told you to get your woman in line?" Sheldon asked. "Cowboy up, Hofstadter!"

"Okay," Penny said, getting up. "Leonard and I are going to the hospital. Those of you that don't have a baby to have, you can stay here or you can come with us, but _no one_ that comes with us is going to argue about who ate what for the next twenty four hours or so. Understood?"

* * *

><p>"So, they're in there now," Bernadette said, slapping her knees and sitting down in the chair next to Howard. "Now we all wait."<p>

"I wish we knew what was going on in there," Amy said. "We could be sitting here wondering what's happening, and it could be still 'three hours until baby' or it could be 'Leonard's on his way out now to tell us Savannah Amy Hofstadter has been born."

"Amy, I don't think that – "

"Guys!"

They looked over toward the elevator. Raj was coming toward them. "I got a date with Missy!"

"What were you doing in the elevator?" Howard asked. "They wouldn't put labor and delivery on a top floor."

"Missy?" Sheldon questioned.

The room fell silent. "You know, guys," Howard said. "There is a way to tell what is going on…"

"My sister, Missy?" Sheldon asked.

"Yeah, what's it to you?" Raj said.

"I thought it had been established that she, to put it honestly, did not like you," Sheldon said.

"Has it been established how he's talking when Amy and I are right here?" Bernadette asked.

"Oh, come on, I'm so drunk right now," Raj said. "I toasted myself. About a dozen times." He looked at Sheldon. "And it wasn't that she didn't like me, it was me not being able to talk to her. And why do you even care?"

"I care about preserving he genetic integrity of my family," Sheldon said.

"It's part of why he married me," Amy interjected, smiling.

Sheldon looked at her, smiled, and then back to Raj, who didn't appear impressed. "Still dude, you said back when we met her that she can date whoever she wants. It's her personal life, and if she wants to be with me, she can be with me!"

"I'm so glad you had the same attitude when Leonard was dating _your_ sister," Bernadette pointed out.

Raj stopped. "That's different."

"How?" Sheldon asked.

"Yeah," Amy said. "How, Raj? How?"

After a moment of awkward silence, Bernadette spoke up. "I'm more concerned about just _how _Howard seems to think we can have a play – by – play on what's going on in Penny's room."

"Howard is the master at hidden cameras," Raj said. "He probably rigged something up. His laptop is right there."

All eyes slowly shifted to Howard. "How could I possibly rig up a camera in the labor room?" Howard asked. "We don't even know what one she's in."

Bernadette jumped up and gasped. "The teddy bear! You put a webcam in the teddy bear!"

"Wha-psssh-wha…" he held out his hands. "Why would I ever…okay."

"That's…that's wrong, dude," Raj said, shaking his head.

"Sister dating hypocrite," Howard hissed.

"Yeah!" Sheldon said, jumping in his seat and pointed at Howard as if that made the engineer's point stronger.

"Hang on," Howard said. "The last time I put a webcam in a teddy bear, it was for somewhat…somewhat 'creepy' purposes. This time, it's so we can see what's happening!"

"I…I really don't care to _see_ what's happening," Sheldon said.

"Relax," Howard said. "Like she's going to have the teddy bear down at the foot of the bed."

Sheldon shrugged. "Very true. And in the spirit of not not ruining this _joyous_ day…" he nodded toward Raj. "I won't give you any trouble about dating my sister, despite the grief you gave my best friend. I'm going to be the bigger person. Literally, and in this sense."

"You're so forgiving and tolerant," Amy said, touching his arm. Then she looked around. "I'm sure we could find a room for ourselves somewhere around here…"

"Can we keep our libido in check, please?" Bernadette said. "Penny's having a baby."

"Not at the moment," Howard said, studying his laptop. "She's sitting backwards on a chair talking to Leonard."

"Oh, give me that," Bernadette said, taking the laptop from her husband and slamming it shut.

"So, does that mean that libido doesn't have to be…"

It was Amy's turn to have all the eyes in the room – including the admissions nurse – trained on her. She nodded. "Okay, okay."

**Please take the time to vote in the poll in my profile, the Big Bang Theory board at Fanforum is trying to determine the favorite Leonard/Penny kiss. All kisses, cheek and mouth, are included. : )**

**And yes, there's still no baby. But again, in real life these things take time. And hey, they're at the hospital now! :P**


	78. Fine

**Again, _so_ sorry that it's been so long since I updated! I'm working more than forty hours a week, and sometimes when I get home I'm just too tired to edit after I work on my summer classes. **

**But enough of the apologies, here is more of the fic that includes no one that I own. Boooo.**

"I'm so uncomfortable," Penny complained. "That's worse than the pain. That's really not terrible yet, but not being able to be comfortable is going to drive me up the wall."

In the hour they'd been in the labor room, it was about the tenth time that Leonard had heard that statement. It was almost as if the more Penny said it, the faster things would move. But they'd only been sure for about six hours that this was the real thing and not a false alarm, so it's not like things weren't moving along. The doctor said it should only be a couple more hours or so. But that wasn't comforting her. "I know you are," he said, brushing her hair back. "Do you want to try changing positions?"

"No, because I don't wanna move," Penny said, letting out a discontented sigh. She'd been sitting backwards on a chair to ease the pain in her back, but she'd flopped out on the bed about fifteen minutes prior because she wanted to sleep. She couldn't. The hospital "smells too fake."

"Come on," Leonard said. "You're not in a position that'll work with gravity right now. Gravity's not kind to those that try to work against it. Do you wanna try standing?"

"No," Penny said, rolling to her side. "But maybe that thing where I lean on the back of this table…you know what I'm talking about?"

"Yes," Leonard said, going around behind the bed. "I'm going to adjust this up, okay?"

"Like you can figure that out," Penny said, rolling out of the bed and walking around behind it to stand next to Leonard. "Let me do it."

"No," Leonard said firmly. "I can do it fine. See, just take this thing and…"

"It's _that _clamp," Penny corrected, pointing.

"Are you sure?"

"Just try it," Penny said, smoothing her gown down.

Leonard fiddled with the metal lever and the bed slowly elevated into a chair. He stopped it when it was still on a decent angle. "Good eye," he told Penny.

"And you're apparently the smart one," she said, grinning at him.

"Shut up and get on it," he said, trying to look stern but failing. Penny giggled and crawled back into the bed, but instead of lying down on it she knelt, facing the back of the "chair," and leaned on it. "Is that any better?" Leonard asked.

"No," Penny said. Leonard could see her head shake ever so slightly. "But I know this will help, so…oh, _that_ feels better," she said as Leonard began to rub her back. "God Leonard, this sucks already."

Leonard removed his hands quickly from her back. "You just said…it felt good!"

"Not _you_," Penny said. "This whole childbirth thing. It's gonna take forever, and I'm going to embarrass myself."

"No one is embarrassing during this," Leonard said.

"Oh yeah?" Penny turned her head to see him better. "How many have you sat in?"

"You know what I mean. This is natural; it's nothing to be embarrassed about."

She closed her eyes. "I'm just worried that I won't be able to do it."

"You will," Leonard said. "At the risk of sounding sexist, this is what women are _supposed_ to do."

Penny frowned. "How is that sexist? Men didn't decide that women give birth, biology decided."

"Well, I'm certainly not a biologist!" Leonard joked.

She shook her head playfully. "This is going to be Hell on my arms," she commented, pushing herself back upright to bend at the elbows several times before repositioning again.

"Don't lock them," Leonard said. "The object of this isn't to brace yourself against the back."

She sighed. "Yeah, you're right." She agreed, folding her arms against the slanted back and resting her forehead on them. "Can we play a game?"

Leonard cocked his head. "What kind of game?"

"I don't know. Just something to pass the time."

"Okay," Leonard said, nodding. "Yeah, sure. Do you have any threes?"

Penny's head turned slowly until it was facing Leonard. "Does it _look_ like I have cards?"

"Okay," Leonard said. "I'm thinking of a number."

"Pi?"

There was a long pause. "Okay, you pick the game."

* * *

><p>"Well, I'm bored," Sheldon declared. "Amy, would you care for a game of counterfactuals?"<p>

"While I usually enjoy that game," Amy said, "I don't find myself in the mood at the moment. Penny's in there having a baby. Isn't today a day where we think about life as it is, not life as it could be?"

Sheldon looked at her as if she had three heads. "You're lucky we're already married."

"So are you," Amy retorted. That seemed to throw Sheldon off.

"Guys, can you believe it?" Howard said. "In just a little while, there's going to be a _baby _in our group."

"Gilda has Iris," Sheldon pointed out.

"Yes, but Iris has only been around a little longer than six of us have known Gilda. And quite honestly, I've seen the board more than I've seen that little girl. This is _Penny_ and _Leonard_'s daughter."

"It's one of those things," Bernadette said, shifting her weight to see the Shamy and Raj better, "one of those things that you always knew would happen eventually, but realizing that that thing you always knew would come is _here_…" she trailed off. "It's pretty surreal."

"Well, enjoy this," Amy said, "because it looks like Penny and Leonard are the only ones of us to be having children."

"You guys aren't having a test tube baby?" Raj asked the Shamy.

"We're negotiating on that," Sheldon said. "And then we'll have to save."

"You have so much money already!" Howard said.

"Not as much as Moneybags over there has," Sheldon said, gesturing to Raj. "So I suppose my sister will be well taken care of. Which is all I can really expect since the two of you aren't likely to have intelligent children. And I'm saving for all those as yet uninvented things, so we'll have to start a separate 'test tube baby' fund."

"Well, see there?" Howard said. "Penny and Leonard aren't the only ones that will have families."

"Nope," Bernadette said. "Just think, in a few years we could be sitting here again, another one of us couples in there."

Howard looked at her. "Shamy or Raj and Missy, right?" She shrugged, and he cocked his head and looked at her. "What are you saying?"

"Nothing for sure, she said, looking over her shoulder at him and smiling, leaning back so her left shoulder was against his right one. "But, spending all that time with Iris…" she shrugged. "I might want one of our own eventually. Maybe."

Howard's face changed from hopeful to grinning, and he put his arms around his wife and kissed her cheek. "So," he said, reaching over and grabbing his laptop. "Who wants to eavesdrop on them?"

"Howard," Bernadette said. "That is just really...convenient." She shifted her weight over and leaned over his shoulder.

* * *

><p>"Nine, eight, seven..." Leonard looked at his watch, counting down the seconds to when the contraction was supposed to end, a hand in Penny's. "Three…two…one…done?"<p>

"Done."

"And we are right on with the last one!" Leonard said triumphantly, showing Penny the stopwatch.

"I love how enthusiastic you are about this!" She said. It was hard to hold it in a proper way when she was still leaning on the back of the bed – chair, but they were managing.

Leonard cocked his head. "And you're not?"

"No, no, of course I am," she said, smiling. "Just, you know, you get to sit there and grin at the stopwatch. _I_ get to remove an eight pound human from my body."

"Well, it's not like we can switch places," Leonard said. The grin fell from his face at Penny's glare. "Sorry, I…joke…" he shook his head. "Failed joke."

"No, I know," she said, easing back against the elevated back of the bed. "Whew. That was a lot of work."

"_That_ was a lot of work?"

Her eyes flew up to meet his. "Oh…I am so screwed, aren't I?"

"It's going to be fine," he said.

"Oh will you stop using the word 'fine'? You're too liberal with the word 'fine'."

"I'm too liberal?" He said. "What about you, with that rhythmic chant through the contractions? 'Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine…"

"At least I changed the last one up and used 'ow, ow, ow, ow, ow'!" Penny snapped.

"Ow," Leonard said.

"What's wrong?"

"Well, I was gonna put 'fine' there, but I decided to switch it up a bit," he said.

Penny glared at him. "Smartass."

There was a knock at the door, and the obstetrician entered. "How are we doing?"

"He's too liberal with the word 'fine'," Penny said, at the same time Leonard said "I'm too liberal with the word 'fine'."

"Good to know," she said, smiling. "Penny, I'm going to check and see how far along you are, okay?"

"Be my guest," Penny said, shifting her weight.

"Took me two years to hear that," he mumbled.

"Did you say something?" Penny asked pointedly.

"How about this," he said bending down to kiss her forehead. "I'll stop trying to make you laugh, okay?"

"No no," Penny said. "Rolling my eyes at your jokes are distracting."

"Okay," said the OBGYN. "You're about seventy percent there. How do you feel?"

"Well, according to the books," Penny said, "about like I should."

She smiled. "Just remember, this isn't going to be exactly like the books. It's good how prepared you are, of course, but if things start to differ at this stage, don't panic."

Penny nodded, looking over at Leonard. "I think she's got this," he said, smiling down at her and then looking back at the doctor.

She smiled. "You guys have been great so far. I'll be back in about fifteen minutes to check you again."

"Bring on transition," Leonard said, looking down at Penny.

She gave a half hearted smile and punch to the air. "Let's get this party started!"

"Well," said the OBGYN, "someone's enthusiastic. Oh," she said, looking over to Penny's left, "that's a cute bear. Did you give that to her, Leonard?"

"No," he said. "A friend did. He's in the waiting room."

"Ah." She smiled at them. "I'll be back."

"Okay," Leonard said. He looked at the bear, then back at Penny. "That _is_ a cute bear."

"Much cuter than the one that he put the webcam in," she said. "Or maybe that one is just tainted to me now." She started laughing, then frowned and looked over at the bear.

"What?" Leonard asked.

She studied it another moment, then shook her head. "Nothing. Never mind."


	79. R2D2

**So sorry I haven't updated in nearly a week, everyone! I've been getting some overtime and taking advantage of that. There's only a few more chapters left, and I promise that this fic will be finished by the end of the month-six months is long enough to write a fic, I think!**

**And I still don't own anything. Not quite yet. :)**

Leonard returned from getting Penny a glass of water and found her with her hands over her face, hardly the relaxed, half asleep woman he'd left. "What's wrong?" he asked, rushing to her side and spilling half the water in the process.

"She moved, and now I think her head's against my spine, and…" She shook her head.

"You need to get off of your back," Leonard said. "Being in that position makes back pain worse, especially when the baby's head is against your spine and…"

"Leonard, I know!" she said. "I can't move on my own, I'll fall off this stupid thing and…"

"Right, right," Leonard leaned over and helped her stand up. "You're okay," he said as she put her head on his shoulder. He rubbed her lower back. "It's okay. You wanna walk around?" He slid one arm around her back. "Let's walk."

"Ugh," Penny said, shuffling forward. "Can we fast forward to the part where everyone's standing around us and talking about how cute she is?"

"It won't be long now," He said, smiling at her. "Not long now, okay?"

"Uh-huh," she said, closing her eyes. "I want to sit on the chair again."

"Okay," Leonard said, beginning the shuffling needed to change directions. "Oh-h," Penny said. "My water broke."

"Good!" he said, smiling. "Good."

"Uh-huh," she said, putting a hand under her stomach to help with balance. She eased onto the chair and let out a loud sigh.

"Is that any better?" Leonard asked.

"Did you ever get me that water?"

"Oh, right!" Leonard retrieved the half full glass and handed it to her.

"Thanks," she said, taking it from him and putting it to her lips. When she was finished, she dropped the plastic cup on the floor. "Can I go back to bed?"

"Sure, sure," Leonard said, helping her up. "Here we go."

"No, no," Penny said. "The bed at home. I want to go home."

"We can't go home," Leonard said, "not for a little while, anyway."

Penny settled onto the bed and laid on her side. "I know…" She cleared her throat. "Leonard, another one."

Leonard hit 'start' on the timer on his phone and grabbed her hand with his other one. "Ten seconds…twenty…" he squeezed her hand reassuringly. "Thirty…forty…forty five, forty six…almost done, almost done…fifty, fifty one, fifty two, fifty three…" Leonard raised his eyebrows. "Fifty six, fifty seven, fifty eight, fifty nine, sixty." He took a breath. "Sixty one, sixty two…" He looked at the watch, and then back at Penny. "…sixty five…"

"Done!" Penny pushed her hair back away from her face. "How long since the last one?"

"Just under two minutes." Leonard said. "I think you're in transition, baby."

"Yes!" She said, throwing her head back and giving a half – hearted punch in to the air. "Yes!"

"Okay, now remember," he told her gently. "This phase doesn't last very long, hence the name 'transition', but it can get pretty bad, so just relax, and…"

"Stop talking so smart!" Penny said, closing her eyes. "Leonard, I can't do this."

"Yes you can."

"No," Penny said, looking up at him with tears in her eyes. "I can't. I don't have control of anything. I can't stop them, I can't make them be over any faster, I can't decide anything."

"It's going to be okay," Leonard said. "If they had a Nobel Prize for childbirth, you'd be walking across that stage in Stockholm next year."

"Stop it," she said, teary – eyed. "You're sweet, but…"

"Shhhh," Leonard said, pushing her hair back. "Your body knows what it's doing, okay? That's why the doctors and nurses are checking on us instead of constantly being here and telling you what to do. Remember? We chose for it to be this way. Your body's taking control because it knows."

"I'm so hot," Penny said, closing her eyes and taking in a deep breath. She flung the blanket off of her and used it to fan herself clumsily. "Not. Helping," she said in frustration. "Contraction Leonard. Contraction, Leonard!" She closed her eyes. "Son of a _bitch!_"

Leonard put both of his hands on hers and let her grind his fingers together. "Good girl," he said, repeating the praise until the word 'over' escaped her lips. "That one was a minute and a half long, Penny. We're so close."

"They just don't _stop_," She said, wiping her eyes. "Why can't I just get her out now?"

"It's not time yet," Leonard said gently.

"I don't give a rat's ass if it's time or not," Penny said, shifting her weight. _"It seems time enough to me!"_

"It's okay," he said, sounding like a broken record as he rubbed her back. This time she didn't snap at him not to touch her until the contraction was over. He jerked his hand back.

"Ring the nurse, ring the nurse," Penny said, pointing at the switch. Leonard reached over and flicked it to the other side, and a nurse entered within thirty seconds. "How are we doing?" she asked.

"Transition," Leonard said. "Minute and a half with a minute in between them."

"Good!" she said. The obstetrician entered the room. "How's it going? I'm going to check you out again, okay?" Penny nodded.

"Okay, well you're at nine centimeters," she said. "Just a few more minutes and then we can try working on getting her here, okay?"

"Mmm-hmm," she said, rolling from her side to her back. "Nope." She rolled back over.

"You can try sitting or standing if you want," the doctor reminded her.

"Oh, sitting, sitting," she said, beginning to shift her weight until she was reclined. "That's better." She reached for Leonard's hand, and he automatically started up the timer on his phone again, leaning over and kissing her forehead. "We're almost done now, okay? Almost done." She nodded, keeping her eyes closed. "Fifty nine, sixty, sixty one…"

"Ugh!" Penny said. "I should have had a water birth."

"Huh?"

"Oh…" Penny said. "I've…I've heard good things."

"We vetoed that idea," Leonard said. "You were afraid of drowning."

"Yeah," she said, sighing again. "Bad move."

"You're doing great," the doctor said. "Just great."

"I just saw your friends," said the nurse.

"Did they ask about us?" Leonard asked.

"Strangely, no," she said, suddenly looking confused. "They were looking at a computer."

"Oh…" Penny suddenly sat straight up. "Give me the bear!"

"Here, here," said the nurse, grabbing the stuffed animal and handing her to him. "You're okay, you're doing great…oh my God!" she shrieked as Penny ripped the bear in half.

"Huh," she said, looking in both halves of the stomach. "I guess I was wrong."

"Okay, focus here, focus here," Leonard said, pushing her hair behind her ear and taking the bear, setting it on his knee. "Are you ready to go?"

She closed her eyes and nodded. "Can we?" she asked.

The OBGYN pulled over a tray. "We are good to go. Are you ready, Penny?"

"I want this to be over," Penny said. "Water."

"Oh!" Leonard looked around. "The cup's on the floor, by the chair."

"I'll get you one," said the nurse.

"Thank you," Leonard said, squeezing Penny's hand.

* * *

><p>"Do you want pictures?" Leonard asked after several minutes.<p>

Penny's head lolled from side to side in a weak headshake, her eyes opening to regard him. "No, stay here," she whispered. "Please stay here!"

Leonard slid his arm around her neck and curled the fingers of his other hand around hers. "This comfortable?"

Penny squeezed her eyes shut "_no!_" She let out a raspy breath and looked up at him. "But stay right there, okay?"

"I'm not going anywhere," he said, squeezing her hand.

"Good," she said, her eyes squeezed shut. "Is she here yet?"

"Not yet," he said, almost wanting to laugh at the question to which there was an obvious answer.

"Oooh," she complained. "Why not? What am I doing wrong? How long have I been doing this?"

"We've been at it about twenty minutes," the doctor said. "And you're doing great. Now give me another one, okay?"

"You're doing good, so good," Leonard said, rubbing her neck with his thumb. "You ready to go again? Let's go!"

"Stop pressuring me!" Penny said, sounding distressed.

"I'm not, I'm not," Leonard assured her, grabbing both of her hands.

"I thought it was my decision!"

"I'm just trying to encourage you, okay?" Leonard snapped. An instant later he felt terrible for the tone of voice as Penny looked up at him with an expression that told Leonard that she was hurt. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he said, brushing her hair back again.

She nodded. "Okay," she said in the high pitched I'm – about – to – cry voice. She wasn't okay. Leonard knew that, and he'd probably just made it ten times worse for snapping at her. His heart broke when her eyes welled. "Oh, sweetie, I didn't mean it."

"Are you comfortable in that position?" The doctor asked her. "Do you want to try standing or sitting up some more?"

"I don't _know!_" she said, bursting into tears.

"Oh God," Leonard said, "this is all my fault, honey, don't cry, I love you so much, you know that, right? Don't cry."

"I'm trying!" she said, looking up at him.

"I know," he said. "I'm proud of you, okay?" He kissed her forehead. "You're amazing, I'm sorry I yelled, I'm so sorry."

"Don't doubt yourself," said the doctor, "tons of women do this every day. Do you want to change position?"

"What I want," Penny said, "is that R2D2 shop vacuum thing to just do this for me."

"You make _Star Wars _references while doing this," Leonard said, kissing her forehead again. "That's why I love you."

"I love you too," she said in a high pitched voice. "I'm good like this. Now just hold my hand."

"I am," he said. "I am."

* * *

><p>"I can't see anything now that she ripped that damn bear in half," Howard complained.<p>

"We're all in the same boat here, dude," Raj said.

"Well, I mean, you can kind of see…" Amy said.

"Yeah, we can see half the screen's worth of Leonard's arm and half the screen of the side of the bed," Howard said. "So, pretty much all we need to."

"At least the nurse didn't take the bear with her," Bernadette said. "Because I think then we'd all be in for a major invasion of privacy."

"Because what we're doing now is just totally okay," Amy said.

"Has Inappropriate Amy found 'the line'?" Raj asked, making quotation marks in the air.

"Do you see me protesting?" Amy said. She looked back at the screen. "Hey, we can kind of see her now…oh my God!" Jumping up, she darted out of the room.

Sheldon got up to follow, finding his wife sitting by the vending machines around the corner. "Amy, whatever is the matter?"

"Did you see her?" Amy said, looking like she was about to cry.

"Yes," Sheldon said. "She's having a baby, were you expecting her to be smiling and singing the title theme from _The Sound of Music_?"

"Well…no…" Amy said. "She can't exactly sing. But…"

Sheldon looked at the floor, made a face, and then lowered himself down next to her. He slowly slid his arm around her shoulders. "There, there."

She smiled at him. "Has anyone ever told you that that's not all that comforting?"

"Has anyone ever told you that it's the thought that counts?"

Amy thought about it for a moment before nodding. "Fair enough."

* * *

><p>Bernadette, Raj, and Howard groaned when Leonard moved and the stuffed bear fell to the ground. "Great," Howard said. "Now there's stuffing covering half the screen."<p>

"At least you hid the camera in the head," Raj said. "Otherwise she'd have found it and we'd be seeing either a black screen or the inside of a garbage bag, which is basically the same view."

"So instead we get a view of Leonard from the feet up with a hand to his mouth?" Howard said, gesturing at the screen.

"Guys…" Bernadette said.

"Well, it's better than nothing," Raj said. "I mean, we did just get rid of Shamy, didn't we?"

"Guys!" Bernadette said. "Look at his face."

"He looks pretty mesmerized by something," Raj said. He looked at Raj. "I wonder what?"

Howard, understanding what Bernadette was getting at by now, raised an eyebrow in unison with his wife as they looked at the astrophysicist. After another moment, Raj got it. "The baby!"

**Thought I'd give you a bit of a longer chapter to make up for the time. :) Hope you enjoyed it!**


	80. Savannah and Us

**And here's another chapter! I figured I'd update quickly because I'd been making you guys wait-I apologize! And I might not have a lot of time the next couple of days since we now have a motherless kitten to take care of, so wish me luck on that! :D Fun fact, this was the tenth scene that I wrote in the entire fic, and it helped me decide what sort of difficulties they would face throughout it.**

**And now I only own Savannah. : )**

"Leonard," Penny said, "she…" she took in a breath. "There's her swalms!"

Leonard bit his lip to prevent himself from laughing at the doctor's perplexed face; he ended up focusing his attention on the pain in his hand as Penny squeezed it tightly one more time as it hit them that their daughter was in the doctor's hands instead of Penny. And he felt transformed. Maybe the stars were pretty, maybe the shooting ones, and the satellites, maybe they were mesmerizing, but they were the exact likeness of Jabba the Hutt next to the little baby girl that was now in the hands of the obstetrician. And when she opened her little mouth and let out a cry in shock of being forced into a world of bright lights and cool air, Leonard let go of Penny and put a hand to his mouth, uncomfortable with the overwhelming emotions that rose up within him. He had already loved the baby; he had shared all of Penny's fears during the pregnancy. And of course he loved Penny with every atom of his being. But now, having watched her give birth to their daughter, and seeing the newborn for the first time, Leonard felt that there weren't _enough_ atoms in his being for what he felt for the two of them. He had thought that he loved Penny with everything he had, but now he loved their child so very much more than he had before. And he loved Penny so very much more, too. The feelings swirling within him were overpowering and he wanted to be left alone for a few minutes to cry; at the same time he never wanted to leave the room again.

The obstetrician put the baby on Penny's chest, and she put her hands gently on its back. She didn't care that the newborn had only had the briefest of cleanings. She was her and Leonard's daughter. "Oh my God," she said quietly, rubbing the little girl's back. "Hi, Baby. Oh God," she said, looking up at Leonard. She held his gaze for several seconds, and then looked back down at their daughter. "Hi, little baby..."

"I love you," Leonard whispered, kissing her forehead. "I'm so proud of you."

Penny's eyes welled up again. "I love you too," she whispered, closing her eyes momentarily while he kissed her. She looked back down at the baby, who had stopped crying. Penny almost felt jealous, she was still crying, she was still breathing somewhat hard, and she was exhausted. Then she remembered Savannah had been through the same thing Penny had, though her experiences were a bit different and the baby hadn't even been able to be taught what was going on. She was probably a lot less relaxed than she was letting on…Penny smiled to herself, sure she was overthinking the complexity of a newborn's thoughts, but at the same time feeling that Savannah was more intelligent than any delivery room staff would give her credit for.

She was Leonard's child, after all.

"There you go, there you go," Penny said to the newborn, touching her nose with a pointer finger.

The nurses came over with clothes and cleaned the baby off while Penny let her eyes come away from her daughter to look up at Leonard, to really see him for the first time since Savannah was born. He looked down and smiled at her as her eyes met his, locking onto them so he couldn't look away even if he had wanted to. He didn't want to – her look was startling. She had never looked at him that way before; Leonard had always thought he knew all of her looks. But it didn't really surprise him that he had never been given this one; he was sure that he would look at her differently from now on, too. They continued to stare, taking in the other's eyes and the rest of his and her being, seeing at the same time the person that they loved more than life itself and the person that they were just now meeting but would love and belong to the rest of their lives. It was, for the first time, a mother and father regarding each other as such. And the moment passed slow.

Leonard glanced over at the doctor, who had lifted the baby from Penny's chest to wrap her in a blanket, and after determining that they had a few more seconds before they got their baby back, took Penny's face in his hands and kissed her again, gently on the mouth. She kissed him back, and when their lips parted they looked at each other again and smiled.

"Here you go, Mom," said the doctor, returning to the bedside with the baby wrapped in a soft blanket.

"Oh…" Penny took her daughter from the obstetrician and brought her to her chest. The baby was warm, she could feel it through the blanket. Now that the little girl was clean Penny could see that her little fingers were curled into fists and her skin was a healthy pink. "Oh hello again, little girl."

"She's textbook," Leonard said, pulling the blanket down slightly so he could see.

"Can't you just say 'perfect', genius?" Penny said, smiling up at him. "Oh, just look at her." She let her gaze fall back on the baby and Leonard was introduced, in profile, to yet another look. This, he knew, was a look that he'd never get to see from the front. It was a look that he'd seen Mrs. Cooper give Sheldon, or Mrs. Wolowitz give Howard. He'd never seen it himself from his own mother, but he knew it was a look that mothers really should be giving their children. And, at less than two minutes old, his and Penny's daughter was receiving one of the sweetest looks Leonard had ever seen. Penny trained the Mother Look on the baby for a moment longer, and then her brow furrowed slightly and she looked at Leonard, and then the doctor and nurse. "That's it?"

The doctor frowned, seeming startled. "I…I don't understand."

Penny didn't try to explain. The doctor couldn't understand. She wasn't disappointed with the baby. She didn't expect more of the little life in her arms. But after everything, after struggles to conceive and fears of cancer and miscarriages and falls and fevers and paranoia over every little ache and pain and movement and lack of movement, all it took was less than a day, start to finish, to bring her and Leonard's daughter into the world, crying and healthy and strong. Despite the distress that Penny had endured for what felt like forever, seeing what that distress had brought forth now suddenly made it feel, in comparison with how everything had transpired up to that point, too easy. Thinking back over the past two years, childbirth suddenly seemed like nothing at all. There had been no complications, no emergencies, no injuries, and no life decisions for Leonard to make. Based on what she'd read, hers hadn't been all that bad. Sure, some women reported painless deliveries, but some women who swore off any sort of medication had ended up needing it, and Penny hadn't. As long as the ordeal had lasted, it wasn't bad for a first baby. This part of the process was uneventful, almost easy. Penny felt as if they'd cheated somehow.

Leonard moved the hand that was around Penny's neck and moved it up to the back of her head. He turned it gently to face him and kissed her again. The hand that was resting on their daughter's stomach came up to Leonard's neck. When their lips parted, they kept their foreheads together, turning them slightly so they could see their daughter.

"What is her name?" asked the doctor gently.

Penny looked back at Leonard. "Savannah," she said, looking at the doctor and then down at the baby. "Savannah."

Leonard slid his right arm around her shoulders and used his left pointer finger to touch Savannah's cheek. He opened his mouth to speak again and found that he was currently unable to perform that action. In place of speaking, he tightened his arm around her and leaned down, kissing the top of her head.

Penny didn't move her arms; they were holding their baby and she was terrified of dropping her, even though it was next to impossible, so she acknowledged his act of intimacy by raising her head up a fraction, against his lips. She couldn't look at him; couldn't take her eyes off of that little life in her arms, the legs that were folded up at the knees from months of being forced into that position, the fingers curled into tiny fists, and the eyes that appeared too big for the rest of the newborn's face.

Penny could remember other mothers, telling her that once she had a baby, she'd see the world differently. She hadn't known how true it would be. All her previous fears of her and Leonard not having a connection with the same intensity as it had once had were gone. Her nearly year old constant fear had evaporated. And the little life that she'd carried within her that she was now carrying in her arms opened up her heart for a new capacity of love. And after nearly two years of stress, frustration, and fear, suddenly everything was okay. Suddenly the three of them were in the same room, they could all see each other, and as Penny lifted the baby to rest on her chest she felt her eyes welling up.

It felt like hours, but a look at the clock revealed it was only ten minutes later the afterbirth had come and the doctor and nurse had finished cleaning everything up. "We'll leave you two alone for a while now," said the doctor, smiling at the little family. "Let her nurse if she wants to."

"Thank you," Penny said, smiling. She looked over at Leonard. "Do you want to hold her?" Were the words out of her mouth next. She regretted them after; she didn't want to let go of her baby just yet. _Our_ baby, she reminded herself. A baby that the father had every right to hold.

"Yes," Leonard answered, and Penny sat up slightly more, passing the little girl from one parent to the other. Leonard sat on the edge of the bed, holding her firmly against him, making sure she was over the bed. Penny smiled at the look of awe on his face. He raised his head from the baby to Penny. "We did this, Love Bug," he said in the voice that told Penny that he was trying extremely hard not to cry. "She's ours."

"We did," she said, reaching up and squeezing his wrist. He smiled at her again before looking back at their daughter. "I told Sheldon, you know," he said, his voice sounding even more choked up. "The first day. I told him 'Our babies will be smart and beautiful."

"Well, it's a good thing she didn't get your looks and my brains," Penny joked.

"She'd have been wonderful that way, too. You should probably bond with her," Leonard said. "The books said skin – to – skin contact is the best."

"You just got her," Penny said. "It's okay."

"No," Leonard said. "You're her mother. In fact," he said putting his knee up on the bed. "Scoot." Penny lifted herself up and moved over a few inches, and Leonard found enough room to sit next to her, passing Savannah back. "There," He said, putting an arm around her and kissing the top of her head. Penny slid her arms out of her gown and held Savannah against her chest, tilting her head down to kiss the baby's forehead. "Are you going to feed her?"

"Not yet," Penny said. "The nurse said she'll probably start crying for it."

"Well, then I'll leave in a few minutes and make the phone calls," Leonard said. "I promised you, remember?"

"Don't leave yet," Penny said. "The three of us are alone together!"

Leonard smiled and readjusted his weight, remaining with Penny for several more minutes. "You're right," he said quietly. "Let's make this last a little longer."

**Hope you enjoyed it, as always, reviews are appreciated! We just passed 600 for this fic, I'm totally flattered that so many people have let me know what they thought. Thank you to all!**


	81. My Girls

**New chapter time! I've been so busy I don't have time to apologize for not updating, but hey, to anyone who watches the Mentalist, don't forget it's Robin Tunney's birthday today! :D **

**So I kinda own Savannah…but yeah, that's it.**

Leonard walked down the hallway and exited the delivery area of the hospital through two very heavy wooden doors. The group was still all sitting in the spoilerishly named Waiting Room, the laptop closed in Howard's lap, everyone else toying with their hands in apprehension.

"Well?" Bernadette asked, standing up. "Am I an aunt?"

"You are!" Leonard said proudly, opening his arms in anticipation for the hug that Bernadette indeed gave him. He addressed the room. "It's a girl!" The gang cheered and applauded for a few seconds, and then fell silent. "I know you already knew that," Leonard said, grinning. "I just wanted to be able to say it."

"Whoo – hoo!" Sheldon said, jumping up and punching the air.

Leonard leaned back slightly in confusion. "What the Hell was that?"

Sheldon shrugged, pointing toward Amy. "She was upset. I thought that might cheer her up."

Amy looked like she was trying not to laugh. "It did."

"Can we see her?" Howard asked.

"You didn't do enough of that already with your little webcam?"

"Hey now, this is a…a monumental day! We just wanted to be a part of it!"

"Hey…" Bernadette raised her hand. "I didn't look a lot at the webcam. Can _I _see her?"

Leonard smiled. "Of course!"

"Not fair!" Raj protested. They turned to look at him. "Or something a little more mature."

"Come on," Leonard said. "This way. She wants to see you guys."

* * *

><p>Penny was nursing the baby when they entered the room. "That was fast," Leonard commented, smiling.<p>

"Tell me about it," Penny said. "She didn't seem at all interested until you left the room. But then she just…" Penny shrugged. "…started going to town."

"Maybe she's unaware that Leonard has seen them," Howard joked.

"That's not a concern of a newborn, Howard," Amy informed her. "Children are not aware from the moment of their birth that not everyone sees their mother's breasts, nor would it concern them that a male is in the room. Approximately half of them are males themselves."

"I'm pretty sure he was joking," Penny said, smiling.

"Big smiles," Bernadette noted, gesturing toward Penny and Leonard, who had walked to the other side of the bed and hand a hand on Penny's arm.

"Yeah, well…" Penny looked down at the baby. "There's a lot of reason to."

* * *

><p>Later that afternoon, after Leonard returned from calling Gilda and telling her the news, he found Penny and Savannah dozing, Savannah in her cradle by the bed, and Penny in much the same position she'd been in when Leonard left, head turned toward the side, left hand hanging off the edge of the bed and right hand on her stomach. The sight of them, though not surprising in the least, made Leonard stop walking. He looked at the two of them and smiled, feeling warm and happy. <em>My girls<em>, he thought, _my family_. He sat on the chair next to the bed, adjacent to both Penny and Savannah, and reached over to take Penny's hand. His thumb brushed against her engagement ring and he smiled.

Penny's eyes opened and she looked first at her hand, and then up at Leonard. "Hey."

"Hey there, Mom," Leonard said, not even trying to hide his grin. "I made some of the calls. Are you up to some more visitors in the morning?"

"Gilda Iris?"

"They'll be here. They said congratulations. Also," Leonard said, "Sheldon informed me that until you and Savannah are home, he will be locked in his room."

Penny frowned. "Why?"

"Something about Savannah being young and possibly still alive when the robot thing happens, so he wants to do everything he can to be around as long as possible so he can instruct her on what to do with his brain."

There was a long silence. "Ah."

Leonard shrugged. "You know Sheldon."

"That I do," Penny said. "On a somewhat unrelated note, have you called our families?"

"No, not yet. It's just after midnight in Omaha, and New Jersey's in the middle of the night, too. I figured it would be best to wait until morning."

"You're going to call your mother, aren't you?" Penny asked. Leonard shrugged. Penny glared at him. "Leonard! You promised!"

"She doesn't care, Penny. She never cares about what I do."

"Savannah is her first grandchild. She has a right to know about her." Penny reached across with her other arm and laid her hand on his. "My dad may have wanted a boy, but he got a daughter, and that daughter isn't going to exclude him from her life." She gave Leonard a gentle smile. "Just call her and tell her she has a granddaughter. That's all you have to do." She smiled. "Plus, she likes me, and I did this too."

"Hello, Dr. Beverly Hofstadter speaking."

She didn't even have his number in her caller ID. "Hello, Mother. It's Leonard."

"Oh." There was a silence. "Hello, Leonard."

Leonard wasn't sure how to proceed. His parents didn't even know that Penny was pregnant. With everything going wrong, they hadn't wanted to tell the older Hofstadter's in case something happened. They didn't want Beverly further regarding them as failures. "We haven't spoken in a while."

"Yes, yes, that is correct."

Leonard tapped his foot. "Well, I have some news."

"Yes, Leonard, your father broke his nose; I am aware of that."

"What?" Leonard said in shock. "When?"

"That wasn't your news?" A deep sigh was heard over the phone. "I was attempting to bring this seemingly pointless conversation to the thesis. I see that I have failed. What is your news?"

"Well," he said. "You know that Penny and I got back together almost two years ago, and…"

"Leonard, I am a very busy woman, and Sheldon informed me of your reunion with the waitress when it happened, I have no interest in hearing you regurgitate information that has already been…"

"Did Sheldon tell you that we're engaged? Did Sheldon tell you that we decided to start a family? And did you talk to him in the past three hours? You have a granddaughter, mother. A three hour old granddaughter named Savannah." He let out a sharp breath.

There was a pause. A long one. Then Beverly spoke. "Well, give my congratulations, to Penny."

Leonard frowned. "Not both of us?"

"Did you push her out of your, as many say 'hoo ha'?"

"No, but…"

"Okay, you did have successful intercourse, so yes, congratulations, Leonard." As she spoke, her words per minute continued to accelerate until she said in a rush, "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a busy day ahead of me."

There was a click as Leonard's mother hung up.

**We're winding down the fic, there will be at least two more chapters, but I can't promise anything beyond that. It depends on how I decide to wrap it up. : ) I hope everyone has continued to enjoy it.**


	82. It Lives!

**New chapter! I believe this will be the second to last.**

"So when are your parents supposed to be here?" Leonard asked later that night.

"You were the one that talked to them!" she said.

"No," he said, "I gave you the phone and you talked to them right before you fell asleep that last time."

"Was that before or after Raj told me he has a date with Missy?"

"Raj has a date with Missy?"

Penny cocked her head. "Yeah..." She cocked it the other way. "I _know_ you were in the room for that conversation."

"Maybe that was when I was busy not talking to your parents."

She rolled her eyes. "I was really the one who talked to them." It was more of a statement than a question.

"_Yes_, I'm telling you."

She frowned. "Okay, I think I remember that…tomorrow morning, maybe," she yawned, shifting her weight and looking over at Leonard. "Gilda was sweet to bring Savannah a board," she said, gesturing toward the gift sitting in the corner.

"Gilda was predictable to bring Savannah a board," Leonard said.

"Oh," Penny said. "She's sweet. I'd have been okay with you getting with her if I wasn't around."

Leonard laughed. "If you weren't around, you really wouldn't have had much of a say in the matter."

Penny gave a short laugh, shook her head, and smiled. "She looks happy," she said, motioning with her head to Savannah. Leonard looked down at her. "I think she likes me."

"Well, that's good," she said. She cocked her head. "Did you call your dad?"

Leonard nodded. "As soon as his nose heals, he's going to come out to see us. You'll finally get to meet him!"

"Well, I'm sure he'll like me," she said. "What with his fondness for waitresses and all." Leonard gave a dry laugh. "Is she still with him?"

"No," Leonard said. "She broke it off because," his voice grew high pitched "I just feel so bad about breaking up a marriage!" he sighed. "That stupid…"

"Ah!" Penny warned. "Innocent little ears."

"That won't remember anything about this conversation apart from the sound of our voices," Leonard reminded her. "Hey, can we get her one of those shirts that says 'Santa doesn't exist, but I can't read, so it's okay'?"

Penny blinked. "That's terrible!" she said. "But yeah, I've always wanted to dress a baby up in one of those!"

Leonard laughed. "You want her again?"

Penny held out her arms. "Always!"

"Here you go," he said, shifting the baby from his arms to hers.

"Baby, baby, baby," Penny said, smiling down at the little girl. "Screw being woken up in the middle of the night for feedings, I'm never going to sleep because I'll want to hold her all the time!"

There was a knock at the door. "Come in," Penny called, shifting Savannah in her arms. She looked up as the door opened. Her jaw dropped. She glanced at Leonard, who was frozen in shock, eyes wide and mouth open as he stared.

Leonard's mother stood there, looking disheveled and tired. "Hello, Leonard. Hello, Penny."

"Mother?" Leonard asked. "What are you doing here?"

Penny was still in shock. Her mouth still hung open, not from the initial surprise of seeing Beverly there but from the realization that had just hit her.

Beverly cared. Penny could see that in the way her eyes focused on the little human being Penny held in her arms. Her expression was unlike any that Penny had ever seen on that face before. She couldn't even recognize it, but she knew that it was good.

"I came to see my granddaughter," Beverly said, matter-of-factly. "And my future daughter-in-law, and my son." She came toward them, walking slowly. When she reached them, she looked at Leonard, who was still sitting with his mouth open. "Is that any way to treat your mother?" She stiffly held out her arms. Leonard rose and hugged her. After a second or two, Beverly released her hold on her son, but he kept his arms around her, and Penny could see that he was trying to hold back tears. Beverly put her arms back around her son. "Okay. I suppose the conventional length of a hug can be lengthened slightly given our mother son relationship, the fact that we haven't seen each other in over a year, and that you are probably sleep deprived."

When mother and son broke apart, Beverly looked at Penny. "How are you, dear?" she asked. She cracked a smile. "Homegirl?"

Beverly trying to fit in was so hilarious and adorable to Penny at the same time that she just smiled for a second before answering. "I'm good, Bev. I'm really, really good."

"Mother," Leonard said, gesturing to Savannah, "this is your granddaughter, Savannah."

"I can see that," Beverly said. "You wouldn't be holding some other woman's baby, now would you?" She studied the newborn for a long moment. "Can I hold her?" she asked.

Penny couldn't help the smile that came over her face. "Of course," she said, letting Beverly take Savannah from her. She was just a little apprehensive giving her daughter to someone else-especially someone whose hands were shaking-but Beverly held Savannah very carefully.

Now that her hands were free, Penny reached over and grabbed Leonard's wrist. _Can you believe it?_ She mouthed at him.

_No!_ He mouthed back, smiling brightly.

Penny squeezed his wrist, noticing the tears that had formed in his eyes. Beverly had given her middle child minimal care, had never given him the affection and love that children need; had never really been a mother. But now she had taken the first possible flight completely across the country to be able to hold her grandchild.

"She's smiling at me," Beverly said. Her voice cracked a little. "I apologize," she said. "I'm not used to feeling this…" she trailed off, for once unable to come up with a satisfactory adjective. "I'm not used to feeling. How embarrassing." She shook her head, looking down at Savannah. "Embarassing indeed. I would detail to you why it is so, but given your young age and the average I.Q.s of your parents – although even I will admit it is mostly the former – you would not understand anything but what my voice sounds like."

"Told you." Penny smiled at her soon – to – be husband, who was trying to hold back the tears and failing to keep his voice sounding normal. The change in his mother was too sudden and unexpected for Leonard to be able to form any other sort of verbal response. He watched her holding his daughter, cradling her so…so…just looking at her in a way that Leonard knew she had never looked at him. He thought of his talk with Penny months ago, about Mary Cooper, and how it seemed impossible that she could become nicer as a grandmother because she was already such a sweet lady. Maybe she _couldn't_ get nicer-maybe her share had been given to Beverly. And sure, Beverly still wasn't reacting the way Mary would have had this been her grandchild, or maybe how any new grandmother would react. But she'd been speechless, she had only minorly insulted Leonard and Penny so far, and now she was willingly giving prolonged contact with another human being that was only indirectly her accomplishment.

It was as if the Large Hadron collider had discovered even smaller particles.

"She has your nose, Leonard," Beverly said. "Your father's nose, of course, but the similarity is noticeable."

"She has my eyes," Penny said proudly.

"Very similar, that's a certainty," Beverly agreed. She gazed down at the baby. "My first grandchild," she said, almost to herself.

Penny felt Leonard's hand tighten on hers. "_It lives_," he whispered. Penny smirked.

* * *

><p>When Beverly excused herself a few minutes later to use the bathroom, Leonard put Savannah back in the cradle and looked at Penny. "That's the most emotion I've ever seen from her."<p>

"It's the Grandmother's Law." Penny smiled. "Moms are crazy about their children's children. And apparently that extends to neurotic, cold, condescending people like yours."

"I know, I…" Leonard wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

"This means a lot to you, doesn't it?" Penny said gently, putting a hand on his arm.

Leonard looked as if he wasn't going to speak; he looked away and put his hand up to his face. Then he turned back to her, nodded, and let the first tear slip out of his eye. "Yes." He nodded quickly. "It's like…it's like even if…" he paused to wipe his eyes. "Even if – though? – she still doesn't love _me _the way she maybe should…" He took both of her hands and squeezed them. "She likes you, and she loves Savannah, and…" he swallowed hard and blinked. "And suddenly that's enough." He looked down at Penny. "Because I kinda like you guys a lot, too. You know."

"Come here," she said, easing over to one side of the bed. Leonard sat down next to her, and Penny slid her hand up to his cheek while resting her head on his shoulder. He let out a sigh and kissed the top of her head.

**Hope you enjoyed it! And in case this wasn't made clear in the chapter, Beverly is not going to all of a sudden be sweet and motherly toward Leonard. She had a surprising emotional reaction to Savannah. That's it. Hope that wasn't insanely out of character for you all. : )**


	83. From the First Breath She Breathed

**Two years ago I began planning this fic. Six months ago exactly I began publishing it. And today I finish it. Six months, almost 150,000 words, and 600+ reviews later, it is finished. Thank you to everyone who read and everyone to reviewed. I appreciate all your views and comments.**

**For the last time (in this fic, anyway) I don't own anything apart from Savannah.**

"I just can't believe it," Leonard said, leaning back and finishing off his coffee. "My mother is in there right now, singing the Element Song to get Savannah to sleep. Penny's asleep, and she looks so relaxed, her parents will be here any minute and…" he trailed off and shook his head.

Gilda grinned across the space between their two chairs. "Enjoy this," she said. "It'll last another six hours until tonight. Then the sleeping will stop. The feedings multiple times a night will start, and don't think you won't get up when she gets up. Then you'll get the colic and the screaming at night. And you'll drag yourself out of bed and then, for some odd reason, not be able to get back to sleep."

"Hmmm," Leonard said, shrugging. "Well, you know, we'll just have to look forward to that part."

"Look forward to it and past it," Gilda said. "Because you'll also have first laughs, first steps, first words, hugs…there's nothing like your baby saying 'I love you', and then of course Savannah will become best friends with Iris, and they'll go off and win some Nobel Prize together."

Leonard smiled. "Iris is two years older than Savannah."

"That doesn't mean they can't be friends," she said. "Amy is two years older than Penny."

"So your daughter is going to develop an obsession with mine?" Leonard asked with a smile.

Gilda smiled. "Well, today I told her that Penny had her baby, and her first question was 'when can she play?', so I guess we're on our way."

Leonard laughed, reaching for her empty cup and dropping it into the trash can next to him. Both of them jumped when Raj, Howard, and Bernadette burst through the doors. "You two! Come quickly! Shamy's getting it on in that closet!"

"What?" Leonard said, jumping up. Gilda followed him. They stopped outside the closet, hesitating for a second, and then Leonard flung it open.

Sheldon and Amy were standing inside, arms crossed, staring back at them and failing to hold back smirks. "Bazinga!" Sheldon said, Amy echoing him less than a syllable behind.

"I knew they'd fall for it!" Raj shouted, punching the air. He and Amy high fived, then she turned to Sheldon. "High five!" their hands hit. "Low five!" they dropped their hands at hip level and hit them. "No five!" they raised their hands and missed each other's.

Howard stared at them. "What?"

"It's their new thing," Bernadette told him.

"Okay," Gilda said, "even with me and my board in the mix, you two are officially the strangest couple in the world."

"Well, you know, it works for us," Amy said, grabbing Sheldon's hand. He smiled.

"See?" Gilda said. "You guys just took hands and didn't even look at each other."

"Well, you know that quote," Bernadette said. "Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction."

Amy smiled. Leonard smiled. Raj smiled. Howard smiled. Gilda smiled.

Sheldon looked confused. "You are basing the entire meaning behind your quote on the fact that Amy and I were both looking at you in a conversation we were having with you. It's absurd."

There was a short silence, and then Raj's phone buzzed. "It's Missy!" he exclaimed. He began texting, and then stopped, looking up at the Shamy. "You don't mind if I tell her about the high five thing, do you?"

"I…" Amy elbowed Sheldon, and he stopped, cleared his throat, and said in a very automated voice, "Missy can date whoever she wants." He glanced at Amy, who nodded.

"Well, look who wears the pants," Leonard joked to Gilda.

"Who wears them in yours?" she challenged. "Hasn't Penny fought like, multiple people since you've met her?"

"Actually…" Bernadette leaned over and whispered something in Gilda's ear. Her eyes widened and she let out a loud, short laugh.

Leonard looked confused. "What?"

Gilda put a hand to her mouth. "You two share a pair of red pants?"

* * *

><p>"Here she is," Leonard said, opening up the door to the room and holding it for Penny's parents. Wyatt and his wife entered the room, smiling as they saw Penny sitting on the edge of the bed, holding their grandchild. "Hey, honey," her mother said, coming over and leaning down to kiss her daughter on the head.<p>

"Hey, mama," she said, smiling up at her.

"And this is little Savannah…" she trailed off. "What's her middle name?"

"Well," Leonard said, "Amy wants it to be Amy, Bernadette wants it to be her name, but she'll settle for the middle name if we'd rather use that, my mom wants it to be her name, Sheldon's mom wants it to be her name, Howard's mother wants hers, Gilda probably wants it to be 'board', and Mrs. Koothrapali wants us to use her name. So we've narrowed it down to…seven."

"I'm no math whiz," Wyatt said, walking over to them, "but…"

"We don't know how to spell Raj's mom's name," Penny said, "so that's out. And 'board' could not be _more_ out, but I assume Mom wants her to be named after her, so we're back to seven."

"I don't care what her middle name is," Penny's mom said. "I just want to hold her."

"Here," Penny said, smiling as she passed her and Leonard's daughter off to her mother. The Nebraskan curled her arms around the newborn and smiled. "She's beautiful, you two." She nodded, biting her lip as her eyes welled up. "Good…good job."

Leonard sank down on the bed next to Penny and put an arm around her. Penny rested her head on his shoulder. "Thanks," he said happily.

"All right," Wyatt said, wiping his eyes. "Give her to me."

"But I just got her," his wife protested.

"Exactly. I haven't had a turn."

"Oh, fine." She turned and handed Savannah to Wyatt, who swallowed hard and looked down at his granddaughter. "Hello, young'un," he said, smiling. "I'm so happy you aren't going to grow up in a house with wheels." He blinked rapidly to stop the tears.

"Hey," Leonard said, looking up at them. "Hey, Wyatt."

Penny's dad looked over at his wife, and then to his daughter and soon – to – be son – in – law. "Yes, Leonard?"

"Guess what?"

"What?"

Leonard squeezed Penny's arm and then pointed with his free hand to the little baby in her grandfather's arms. "I loved her first."

**Hope you all enjoyed it! I tried to have at least some growth in all the characters while still telling the story I wanted to tell with Leonard and Penny. I wanted to give life to Gilda, a character who died along with the original pilot, and I wanted to write a babyfic that was in different circumstances than my first babyfic that I wrote in 2009. **

**And now that it's over, I go back to what I said in the first chapter, with "****At the end of the fic, I'm going to ask a question about it. It's not going to be something you can just go look up. The first person to give me the right answer gets a prize. :D" So here it is. In this fic, a character that appeared in a chapter of this fic (or multiple ones) is a character from another show that I watch(ed). If anyone can tell me who the character is (and all details I gave about the character, description, etc, in this fic are true to the show, at least at the point it ended or the point we're at now if it's a show that's still on) I will write a (at least 5K) fic about the character/pairing of your choice in the fandom of your choice – of the fandoms I've written for so far. I know it's a hard question – it's meant to be! :)**

**And as always, I appreciate every single review I get. I hope you all enjoyed The Parental Ambition.**


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